Chambers St. Subway stop, NYC: A 20th Century Crucifixion Painting

In the early 1970's, at about 2 am on my way home from work as an usher at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, awaiting a train at the Chambers St. stop platform, I looked across the tracks to the opposite wall and saw the name of the station emblazoned in tile on the wall. I imagined crossing the tracks with a can of red spray paint and painting a cross with Christ on it (all in red) in a matter of minutes (as though I was Caravaggio and the police were coming), but I'm not a grafitti artist, I am an easel painter and more as Rodin created complete anatomically correct naked bodies under the bronze robes in which he represented himself I set out to paint the Christ under the red paint. I drew this image for 20 years before I started to paint it and have worked on many, many paintings of it since. The work on this painting (the most important of the series) spans more than 8 years. When I was asked before an exhibition of my work for an image for the invitation to be sent, I submitted this one and was told the school (a Christian-based institution) would not consent to use it as it feared it would offend their donors. I wrote a lengthy explanation saying that although it was a secular work by a non-Christian no disrespect was intended and indeed reverence and respect for the subject was intended in the conceptualization which included the idea that much of the world believes devoutly that Christ can be found everywhere, even in the most remote and 'unlikely?' quarters. I further suggested that I was as certain as I could be, that Jesus would not have objected to being made visible on a subway platform in NYC.The school committee was not swayed, I showed the painting there but the invitation had a Tiger on it.

Painting:Enamel on Wood

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:96 W x 48 H x 1 D in

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