Collection of Modern Religious Art, Vatican Museums

Collection of Modern Religious Art, Vatican Museums
Musei Vaticani, Collezione d'Arte Religiosa Moderna
Established	1973
Location	Vatican City
Curator	Mario Ferrazza
Website	http://mv.vatican.va/StartNew_EN.html

The Collection of Modern Religious Art of the Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani, Collezione Arte Religiosa Moderna) is a collection of paintings, graphic art and sculptures. It occupies 55 rooms: the Apartment of Alexander VI (in the first floor of the Apostolic Palace), the two floors of the Salette Borgia, a series of rooms below the Sistine Chapel, and a series of rooms on the ground floor.

Vincent van Gogh, Pietà, after Delacroix (first version), 1889. Oil on canvas, 41,5 x 34 cm, Vatican Collection of Modern Religious Art

The collection consists of almost 800 works of 250 international artists, for example of Alice Lok Cahana, Auguste Rodin, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Maurice Denis, Odilon Redon, Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Maurice Utrillo, Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Georges Rouault, Oskar Kokoschka, Bernard Buffet, Renato Guttuso, Giacomo Balla, Alfred Manessier, Francis Bacon, Giacomo Manzù, Eduardo Chillida, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso. The majority of these works of art were donated by artists and collectors to the Holy See.^[1].

The prehistory of the Collection of Modern Religious Art begun with the homily of Pope Paul VI during his encounter with artists in the Sistine Chapel on May 7, 1964.^[2].

Pope Paul VI inaugurated the Collection of Modern Religious Art in 1973 ^[3]. Mario Ferrazza is responsible for the collection since 1973.

In response to demands by activists that the Vatican should sell its artistic artifacts and give them to the poor, Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes asserted that the Church has the duty to conserve the works of art in the name of the Italian state and cannot sell them. ^[4]

Notes

1. ^ Ralf van Bühren 2008, pp. 319-323, fig. 18
2. ^ Homily of Pope Paul VI at the “Mass of the Artists” in the Sistine Chapel on May 7, 1964 [1]
3. ^ Speech of Pope Paul VI on the occasion of the Inauguration of the Collection of Modern Religious Art in the Vatican Museums on June 23, 1973 [2]
4. ^ Pope Cannot Exchange Vatican Treasure for Food

References

• Ralf van Bühren: Kunst und Kirche im 20. Jahrhundert. Die Rezeption des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils (Konziliengeschichte, Reihe B: Untersuchungen). Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 2008 (ISBN 978-3-506-76388-4)
• Francesco Buranelli: Art and Faith in the Vatican Museums. The artistic Collections of the Popes, spiritual Treasure of Mankind, in: „Images of Salvation“, Pomezia 2002, pp. 63-71
• Mario Ferrazza (Ed.): Collezione d'Arte Religiosa Moderna, presentation by Francesco Buranelli, Vatican City 2000.