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.