Sketches of Saints

At a thrift store recently, I came across a binder labelled "Sketches of Saints."  Intrigued by the find, I decided to bring it home and scan it to share it with others.

Unfortunately, the artist's name appears nowhere in the portfolio.   Based on where I found the sketches and on the saints included (particularly St. Isaac Jogues and St. Frances Xavier Cabrini), I assume the artist was American.  Based on the paper's evident age and on the fact that the descriptions accompanying each sketch were prepared on a typewriter, the portfolio cannot be too new; my best guess is that it was prepared in the 1980s.  The terminus a quo seems to be 1982, the date of St. Maximilian Kolbe's canonization; his description classifies him as a "saint."  My only hesitation about this date is the fact that, in an accompanying chart of included saints, Maximilian Kolbe's name has an asterisk next to it, and it is printed in smaller font.  This most likely means that his sketch was a later addition to the set, which implies that the other sketches would antedate the sketch of Kolbe; thus most of the sketches may date from the 1970s, with Kolbe's from the 1980s.  (The earliest terminus a quo seems to be 1967, as that is when the hymn "Make Me A Channel of Your Peace" was first published, which hymn is quoted on the sketch of St. Francis.)

As mentioned above, along with the cover page, the portfolio includes a short description of each saint, as well as a list of saints included, with their feast days and patronages.  This list shows that one sketch is, unfortunately, missing from this portfolio: St. Vincent de Paul.

The sketches are each housed in a plastic page protector, which has not been the most protective.  The main issue is that the thick, glossy ink on the pages stuck to the plastic, making it a delicate process to detach the sketches themselves for scanning.  (Unfortunately, I did not realize this when removing the cover page, and hence I accidentally tore it.)  Some ink remained adhered to the plastic, usually with little detriment to the sketch, but some very thick lines caused chunks of ink to tear off the page, notably in the sketches of St. Boniface and St. Therese.  This plastic also seems to have caused bits of smearing on some sketches.

I do not know my inks well enough to tell if these are the original sketches or merely reproductions, but I lean towards the latter: the paper seems to be identical to that used for the typewritten descriptions, and both the typewriter ink and the sketch ink have similar purple hues on the backside of their respective sheets.  However, I may be wrong on this point: certainly the ink used is thick and glossy, which does not come through in my scans. 

I am happy I was able to save this example of Catholic art from the garbage dump; though not all the designs fit my aesthetics, I do think there is beauty to be found in many of them.  I hope you agree as well.