2012-11-02 16:10:10

75-year old painter nun given lifetime achievement award


November 02, 2012 - A 75-year old Catholic nun in southern India’s Bangalore city was recently presented with a lifetime achievement award for her contributions to Christian art. Salesian Missionaries of Mary Immaculate Sister Claire on Tuesday received the Assisi Art Award 2012 from Srinivasa Murthy, chairman of the Karnataka state Legislative Council. More than 1,000 lay people, priests, nuns and church leaders attended the programme on Tuesday in the city. The award comprises a citation and a cash prize of 50,000 rupees. Sr Claire is the first recipient of the Assisi Award, set in 2010 by the Office for Social Communications of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (OSC-CBCI) and ART.i, a forum of Indian Christian artists and art lovers.
Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore said Sr. Claire’s attempts to bring Jesus to the literate as well as to the illiterate of India is the fruit of her deep contemplation and prayer. They are like a spiritual journey with the Lord, a pilgrimage made in contemplation with him. Her works are like the Gospels in colours, he said. The Archbishop said Sr Claire’s efforts to reach God through art by giving it an Indian face are praiseworthy. Murthy called Sr Claire a gift to humanity, praising her for promoting the values of Jesus such as peace, harmony and forgiveness. He said that these art works are impossible for an ordinary person but only a mystic can produce such sublime art work. They are truly the result of a Sadhana, a spiritual exercise. He said Indian society is proud to honour this daughter who contributed much to Indian Christian art.
According to Fr. Paul Kattukkaran, secretary of ART.i, the Salesian sister has drawn more than 1,000 Christian paintings and greetings cards depicting Christian ideals and the life of Jesus Christ. Reverend Gudrun Loewner, a German theologian who has specialized on Indian Christian paintings, said that the nun’s paintings were “refreshing and harmonious.” According to Loewner, more than 200 churches in India have displayed the nun’s paintings which are the results of her prayer and meditation. Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore said that the paintings were Sr. Claire’s spiritual expressions and personal experiences with God. She prayed and meditated, and received inspiration from the Holy Spirit before starting each painting, he said. Father George Plathottam, secretary of the OSC-CBCI, read out the citation which said that the paintings integrated Indian cultural traditions and heritage and promoted communal harmony and inter-religious dialogue.
The 75-year-old nun is considered to be the senior most Indian Christian artist in the country and her paintings have been expressions of her experience of faith in God. Pope Benedict XVI, who was attracted to her paintings, especially on the passion of Jesus Christ, had announced that she was a “Church artist.” Sr. Claire was born in 1937 in a high-caste Hindu family in the temple town of Tirupathi, Andhra Pradesh. At a very young age, she was attracted to the teachings of Jesus. To discourage her from this, her family fixed an early marriage but a few days before it, she ran away from home and came to Bangalore where she got refuge in a convent sixty years ago. “I felt Jesus had a special message for me and wished me to become a Christian and join a convent,’’ she is quoted as saying in an article written by Lowener.








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