WCR This Week

CNS PHOTO | NANCY WIECHEC The 14th station - Jesus is laid in the tomb - is seen on exhibit at the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun in Tucson, Ariz. Ted DeGrazia painted the series in 1964.

CNS PHOTO | NANCY WIECHEC Angels, dancing children and a Yaqui deer dancer celebrate Christ in glory in Ted DeGrazia's 15th station. The artist included the resurrection because he didn't think the Way of the Cross would be complete without it. The series is on display in the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun in Tucson through August.

Arizona Artist Ted DeGrazia left behind a huge body of work, with religious and spiritual paintings that have been inspiring people for decades. Yet he was not a churchgoing man and thought he was not holy enough to paint for the Church.

"His artwork has its own unique style," said George Maki, who was visiting DeGrazia's gallery in Tucson for the first time.

Maki, and his son, Chris, both of Durango, Colo., sat in the room with the DeGrazia Way of the Cross series for half an hour.

"I think they are wonderful," the elder Maki said of the paintings. "They are very emotional, very intense, moving . . . a young lady that was in here was actually crying."

DeGrazia died in 1982. Among his tens of thousands of surviving works are the Way of the Cross; multiple depictions of Our Lady of Guadalupé; a series on Jesuit Father Eusebio Kino, a missionary to the American Southwest; and a mission, which the artist designed, built and dedicated to Kino.

Lance Laber, executive director of the DeGrazia Foundation, the organization DeGrazia founded to preserve his art, said DeGrazia's Catholic heritage, the faith and spirituality of the Indians he befriended and his admiration of Father Kino were inspirations for his religious works.

A priest approached DeGrazia about painting the Stations of the Cross for the St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center at the University of Arizona.

Laber said DeGrazia at first refused the job. "He thought he was not holy enough to do that."

But he had a change of heart and fulfilled the request in 1964.

CNS PHOTO | NANCY WIECHEC The third station - Jesus falls the first time - is part of DeGrazia's Way of the Cross series.

DeGrazia focused heavily on the project, according to journalists James and Marilyn Johnson, authors of the 2014 biography DeGrazia: The Man and the Myths.

"He slept little and didn't smoke or drink until the entire series had been completed," they wrote. "He called it a 'deep religious experience. It was simple, yet exciting - a work on the sensual unity of mankind.'"

Laber said the paintings hung in the Newman Center for a couple of years but were removed and brought back to the DeGrazia gallery because of security and insurance concerns.

In a recorded statement that accompanies the paintings, DeGrazia said he painted Christ alternately as black, red, yellow and white "because Christ is in the image of the beholder," in the image of all people.

He used bold, bright colours as well as muted ones. Yellow, he said, for light, hope and strength; blue for hope and tenderness; red for intensity and suffering.

WEIGHT OF THE WORLD

The fourth station - Jesus meets his mother - is tender and light. A splash of white and yellow rises from the ground as if to hold the pair up.

At the start of the DeGrazia stations, Christ shoulders his large cross. "He's carrying the weight of the world. He's carrying the weight of us, the sinners," DeGrazia said.

In later stations, the cross nearly overcomes Jesus and his body begins to contort under its burden.

The series ends with the Resurrection.

CNS PHOTO | NANCY WIECHEC The above painting depicts the fourth station, Jesus meets his mother.

DeGrazia said he didn't consider the Way of the Cross complete without the risen Christ: "To me this is the way the Way of the Cross should end, with Christ risen. Alleluia."

Angels, dancing children and a Yaqui deer dancer celebrate Christ in glory in the Resurrection painting.

DeGrazia's paintings of the crucifixion and resurrection are exhibited each Lent and for a few months after Easter at the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun.

COMPLICATED MAN

In their biography, the Johnsons called the painter a "complicated man" who had once described himself as "not saint nor devil, but both."

DeGrazia was known to favour booze and carousing and to have a weakness for women. He also displayed a charitable side, giving paintings to people who could not afford to buy original artwork.

His biographers portray him as individualistic, down-to-earth, raw, intensely private and complex.

DeGrazia was born in 1909 in Morenci, Ariz. His Italian immigrant parents named him Ettore. Later he was called Ted. The family lived in the copper mining town for much of DeGrazia's early life. They left for Italy in 1920 and stayed five years, returning to Morenci when Ettore was 16.

The Johnsons' book said DeGrazia stopped participating in Church life as a young man, after two Italian monks dragged him out of Mass for not pumping the organ properly during a service.

A struggling art student, DeGrazia went on to achieve success as an impressionistic painter, making millions from his artwork. His paintings were popular but critics and traditional galleries were not among his admirers.

Southern Arizona remained DeGrazia's home until his death.

(More information about the DeGrazia and the Gallery in the Sun and Mission is available at degrazia.org.)