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Toward the end of his life, Gib Singleton—one of the great Western and biblical bronze sculptors of the 20th and 21st centuries—was bound to a wheelchair and an oxygen machine.
In his youth and throughout his career, he traveled the world, studied art in Florence, Italy, and even worked in the Vatican’s art workshop. He was a prolific artist, producing beautiful bronze sculptures and in the process creating a new style of art that he called "emotional realism."
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A woman is shown praying in this image. (AP)
It was during his final years that he finally completed one of his lifelong dreams: making a series of sculptures of the Stations of the Cross.
"I think on some level every sculptor has a dream of doing the Stations of the Cross," he said. "It's probably the most spiritual subject any artist can deal with. Everything important in the human story is right there—life, death, courage, compassion, love, betrayal, redemption."
Out of his garage studio in New Mexico emerged a series of 15 sculptures that lead you through the Via Dolorosa, the journey Jesus took to the cross. For centuries Christians have meditated on the final moments of Jesus’ life on Earth—from his unjust judgment to being mocked by the Roman soldiers, the crucifixion, and the burial. It is an emotional journey that brings the story of the passion to life in a unique way.
Singleton made several editions of the Stations of the Cross, hoping his sculptures would be installed in cities around the globe. Today, his work can be admired in museums and sacred spaces from Rome to Nebraska. One of these editions has previously been on display at the Museum of the Bible, in Washington, D.C. This year we feature it as a unique virtual experience and part of the museum’s series of exhibitions in celebration of Easter.
Easter is perhaps the oldest Christian holiday. Early Jewish Christians celebrated it along with Passover. Over the next two millennia, Christians all over the world would find hope and strength in the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection as they faced all kinds of adversities.
This year’s Easter will be special for many. One reason is that it seems we have come through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first time in years, many Christians will enter into places of worship all around the world. Families will reunite, and the festive sound of music and singing in scores of languages will reverberate throughout the world.
Priests conduct a service without a congregation, but which was broadcast on television, at the Cathedral Basilica of the Holy Family in Nairobi, Kenya, on Easter Sunday. (AP)
For many Christians, Easter comes at a raw, possibly sorrowful point in their lives. Think of the refugees fleeing the terrible fighting in Ukraine, the families facing severe famine in places like Ethiopia, and the countless people mourning the loved ones they lost over the past year. To them, Easter is more than an early sunrise church service or a family meal. Easter—the promise that death does not get the final word—is what gives them hope in the middle of their suffering. No matter how dark the night may turn, it promises a new day will shine.
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Singleton’s 14th sculpture in the Stations of the Cross depicts the burial of Jesus. While the preceding sculptures capture the pain, injustice, and tragedy of the Via Dolorosa, the 14th statue gives a sense of peace, as if Jesus is resting after completing his work. This is traditionally the final scene in the Stations of the Cross.
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Yet, Singleton didn’t end his work at Jesus’ burial. Like myself and countless others, Singleton may have wondered why the Stations of the Cross typically end at Jesus’s burial, the point at which it seems death has triumphed. So he cast a 15th sculpture depicting the resurrection. Perhaps he meant to provide onlookers with hope, much as the angels did with their glorious announcement to the women who came searching for Jesus’s body on Easter Sunday: "He is not here, for he is risen."