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Composition study for "Christ the Carpenter" World War II portable altarpiece, for Philadelphia Naval Base Chapel
Composition study for "Christ the Carpenter" World War II portable altarpiece, for Philadelphia Naval Base Chapel

Composition study for "Christ the Carpenter" World War II portable altarpiece, for Philadelphia Naval Base Chapel

Philadelphia Naval Base Chapel, "Christ the Carpenter" World War II Portable Altarpiece
,
Philadelphia, PA

Object Details

Title:
Composition study for "Christ the Carpenter" World War II portable altarpiece, for Philadelphia Naval Base Chapel
Date:
c. 1944
Artist:
Medium:
Graphite and sanguine on tracing paper
Dimensions
14 x 10 1/4 in.
Classification
No items found.
Credit Line:
Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 2015
Description

[lower right in red ink]; stamped signatureOne of Oakley's most impressive altarpieces was the monumental Christ the Carpenter for the Philadelphia Naval Yard Chapel, which portrays Jesus as a strong young man in a tunic building the hull of a ship. Beneath the workbench, his pet dog watches as he bears lumber onto his shoulder in a pose that foreshadows the carrying of the cross.

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The Violet Oakley Experience is funded by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.
For her expertise and scholarship on The Violet Oakley Experience, Woodmere thanks Patricia Likos Ricci. The foremost authority on Oakley, she is the Director of the Department of Fine Arts, Associate Professor of the History of Art, and a member of the Women and Gender Studies faculty at Elizabethtown College.
Woodmere’s website infrastructure and the digitization of the Museum’s collection are made possible by the generous support of Lisa Kabnick and John McFadden.