The Modern Line: Peace and Spirituality in 20th-Century Prints
Continuing: Stepping into Thrivent Financial's quiet gallery in downtown Minneapolis can be a midday escape from urban stress or office drama. Drawn from Thrivent's collection of biblical-themed art, "The Modern Line" features more than 40 lithographs, woodcuts and other museum-quality prints. Thrivent is known for original images by Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt and other Old Masters, but this show carries their Christian themes into the 20th century when the German Expressionists (Max Beckman, Emil Nolde, Kathe Kollewitz) found inspiration in ancient tales of brutality, suffering, prayer, redemption and forgiveness. Most of the art is in black-and-white as fits the somber subjects, among them a cinematic crucifixion by George Bellows replete with roiling storm clouds and buff Roman soldiers in handsome Hollywood armor. American artist Rudy Pozzatti tosses in a phantasmagoric vision of "The Temptation of St. Anthony," and Picasso shows his lusty side (of course) in the 1947 lithograph "David and Bathsheba," in which the king ogles, from a rooftop, the voluptuous gal and her maids in the garden below. Three color aquatints by French artist Georges Rouault are stellar, as is a series of stylized 1967 color-linocuts by Sybil Andrews whose "Jesus Falls the First Time: Station III," is shown here. (9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays. Free. Ask for gallery access at security desk. Thrivent Financial, 625 4th Av. S., Mpls.)
Mary Abbe
