Sacred Art Exhibition 2022
It is our great pleasure to present the winners gallery for the 2022 Sacred Art Prize.
We'd like to graciously thank our jurors, Anthony Visco, founder and director of the Atelier for the Sacred Arts and Kathleen Carr, founder and president of the Catholic Art Institute who's role as jurors met the challenge of choosing among so many outstanding submissions this year. The following gallery reflects their selections from over 325 submissions from fifteen countries: Armenia, Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, Malta, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
We extend our profound gratitude to all the artists who participated in the competition and warmly congratulate the winners!
If you are interested in purchasing any of the finalist works, please email contact@catholicartinstitute.org.
Grand Prize in Memory of Sister Mary Paula Beierschmitt, I.H.M. for her contributions to the Catholic arts
Formerly Marianna Beierschmitt, Sr. Paula died on Sept. 28, 2013 in Mary Immaculate Convent, Philadelphia, in the 55th year of her religious life. She was 72 years old.
Born in Ashland, Pa., Sister Paula entered the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1958 from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish and professed her vows in 1961.
She taught school in various grades in up-state Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. In 1984 Sister Paula pursued further studies at various sites including the Barnes Foundation and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She was commissioned by the Pallottine Fathers to sculpt a bust of their founder, St. Vincent Pallotti, for the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
For her IHM Community, she sculpted “The Handmaid” and “The Missionary,” a likeness of Father Louis Florent Gillet, the order’s founder. Sister Paula was the founder of the American Academy of the Sacred Arts in Philadelphia, a Catholic arts organization with a nearly identical mission as the Catholic Art Institute.
Sister Paula Beierschmitt
Grand Prize
"Pretium Extremum Amoris"
by Joseph Brickey
Plaster epoxy resin | 84 x 54 x 15 in. | NFS
2nd Prize
"Crucifixion and Resurrection: North Transept in St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, Ohio, "
by Vladimir Grygorenko
Silicate paints | 1800 sq. ft. | NFS
3rd Prize
"It Is Finished"
by Mikayel Harutyunyan
Oil on canvas | 160 cm. x 120 cm. | NFS
Details: This painting has been permanently installed in the church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
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Sacred Art Exhibition 2022
Curated by Anthony Visco & Kathleen Carr
Anthony Visco
As the founder and director of the Atelier for the Sacred Arts, Maestro Anthony Visco
offers his expertise in designing and fabrication of liturgical art as well offering his
classes and workshops to both groups and to individuals.
Upon graduation from the University of the Arts, he received Fulbright–Hayes Grant to
travel and study in Florence Italy, where he began his studies of the Florentine school of
art and architecture and their study of the classical. In 1975, he was awarded
the Elizabeth T. Greensheilds Grant for figurative sculpture and has received the
coveted Arthur Ross Award in both 1984 and again in 1996 for sculpture within a
classical architectural setting. In 2014, National Sculpture society awarded him the Henry
Hering Memorial Medal.
His many commissions include The Stations of the Cross at St. Joseph Church in
Philadelphia. At the request of His Eminence, Raymond Cardinal Burke he did the Via
Crucis in bronze relief for the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, WI where
he also made the large bronze Guardian Angel of the Unborn in the shrine’s memorial to
the unborn there. Visco’s sculptures, murals, and reliefs adorn the National Shrine of
Saint Rita of Cascia also in Philadelphia. His triptych reliefs at the Catherine Pew
Memorial Chapel in Bryn Mawr, PA along with his bronze doors for the Church of Saint
Stephan Martyr in Washington, D.C. are heralded as having resurrected the art of
pictorial relief both in the United States and Europe. In 2012 he completed the bronze
doors for Saint Stephan Martyr Church in Washington, DC.
His studio courses in both sculpture and mural painting evolve from experience and
knowledge of having studied classical art and architecture. Visco’s understanding of the
relationship of art and architecture serve the greater community is evident in all his
commissions as well as in his teaching methods of teaching classical figure composition,
mural painting, sculpture and relief. At the request of Madame Ambassador Callista
Gingrich, Visco’s work is currently on display at the Embassy of the United States to the
Holy See in Rome Italy.
Kathleen Carr
Kathleen Carr is an award-winning, classically trained painter, illustrator, and designer. She holds a BFA from the Maryland Institute College .
Her painting has received recognition from the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London, The Portrait Society of America, The Art Renewal Center Salon, The Salmagundi Club, The Butler Institute of American Art and many others.
She's an experienced web designer working for major media including Washington Post and National Geographic.
In higher education, she worked as Design Program Head and taught in the undergraduate program at the Corcoran College of Art in Washington DC.
Her design and illustration work has been recognized by Communication Arts, Adobe, and Apple Quicktime.
She studied classical painting with Scott Waddell, of Grand Central Atelier , Robert Liberace of the Art Student's League, and Dan Thompson of Studio Incamminati.