Twenty paintings depicting the Annunciation interpreted by outstanding contemporary Polish painters were presented in Musei di San Salvatore in Lauro in Rome from 19 March – 13 April 2024. The paintings were created thanks to the generosity of private art patrons, as part of the “Let’s paint Catholicism again” project initiated by and the St. John Paul II Institute of Culture at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), and the Saint Nicholas Foundation.
“The Annunciation exhibition is the second edition of a twenty-one-year project bringing together artists and intellectuals convinced of the need for a revival of sacred art. The public inauguration of the project was last year’s exhibition of new versions of the ‘Jesus, I Trust in You‘ image” (2022) – said Dariusz Karłowicz, the curator of the exhibition and initiator of the project.
The exhibition featured paintings by Jarosław Modzelewski, Ignacy Czwartos, Jacek Dłużewski, Wojciech Głogowski, Jacek Hajnos O.P., Krzysztof Klimek, Bogna Podbielska, Beata Stankiewicz, Grzegorz Wnęk, and Michał Żądło.
In this edition of the project, each painter was asked to paint two paintings of the first mystery of the Holy Rosary: one in a format suitable for church interiors, and one of a smaller size for domestic prayer.
As in the first edition of the project, the artists participated in several days of workshops, during which they listened to lectures on the Annunciation from the perspective of systematic and biblical theology, history of art and angelology (the science of angels). The scholars who took part in the process included inter alia: Bp. Jacek Grzybowski, Rev. Marek Starowieyski, Fr. Paweł Trzopek O.P., Fr. Jarosław Kupczak O.P., and Anna Kilian.
The project was initiated and is being developed thanks to the patronage of private donors: Danuta and Krzysztof Domarecki, Jolanta Domańska-Gruszka and Mirosław Gruszka, Wojciech Piasecki, Dorota and Tomasz Zdziebkowski. The exhibition premiered in Warsaw, Poland in November 2023 and is now coming to Rome!
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