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The Head of Christ, also called the Sallman Head, is a 1940 portrait painting of Jesus of Nazareth by Warner Sallman (1892–1968). As an extraordinarily successful work of Christian popular devotional art, [1] it had been reproduced over half a billion times worldwide by the end of the 20th century. [2]
Warner Elias Sallman (April 30, 1892 – May 25, 1968) was an American painter from Chicago best known for his works of Christian religious imagery. He also worked in commercial advertising, as well as in freelance illustration. [ 1 ]
Head of Christ is a 1940 portrait painting of Jesus by Warner Sallman. Head of Christ may also refer to: Head of Christ, an alabaster sculpture of c. 1352 in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona; Head of Christ, a painting of 1521 in the Getty Museum, Los Angeles
The 1940 Head of Christ painting has been printed more than 500 million times, including pocket-sized cards for carrying in a wallet. [6] In the World War II era, "millions of cards featuring the Head of Christ were distributed through the USO by the Salvation Army and the YMCA to members of the American armed forces stationed overseas".
A survivor holds the Warner Sallman image of Jesus Christ during services on February 12, 2010, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after an earthquake devastated the country. - Mario Tama/Getty Images
Head of Christ by Warner Sallman (1941) is the most widely reproduced image of Jesus, despite the fact that he was a Hebrew man from the Middle East. Whitewashing in art is the practice of altering the racial identity of historical and mythological figures in art as a part of a larger pattern of erasing and distorting the histories and contributions of non-whites.
Warner Sallman stated that The Head of Christ was the result of a "miraculous vision that he received late one night", proclaiming that "the answer came at 2 A.M., January 1924" as "a vision in response to my prayer to God in a despairing situation."
Many Protestant and Catholic Christians, as well as political conservatives, worked together to popularize wallet-sized or pocket images of The Head of Christ by Warner Sallman, promoting the idea that "there ought to be 'card-carrying Christians' to counter the effect of 'card-carrying communists'."