Jean Charlot at Saint Mary's: the Saints of the Arts

1956 · frescoes at O'Laughlin Auditorium

The commission: Saint Mary's College, across the road from Notre Dame, made its own mark on this ground's art under Sister Madeleva Wolff, its president from 1934 to 1961, whose devotion to the arts, the college's own account says, made South Bend a niche in the fine arts. In 1956 she commissioned the French artist Jean Charlot — then conveniently at work at the University of Notre Dame — to paint frescoes of the twelve Saints of the Arts, in separate frames on the exterior walls of O'Laughlin Auditorium, at the main entrance of what became the Moreau Center for the Arts.

The state of the work: Charlot's frescoes weathered a half-century of northern Indiana seasons before the Chicago Conservation Center restored them in 2009; one fresco, a man holding fire, survives inside the Little Theatre's entrance in its original condition, untreated. The Moreau Center still houses the college's art life: the Hammes Gallery, the Little Theatre Gallery and the Sister Rosaire Gallery run a continuing program of exhibitions by students, faculty and visiting artists under the college's art department.

Sources:

1. Saint Mary's College, "Saint Mary's Is an Interesting Place" (saintmarys.edu) — Sister Madeleva's arts program, the 1956 Charlot commission and the twelve Saints of the Arts, the 2009 restoration by the Chicago Conservation Center, and the unrestored fresco at the Little Theatre entrance.
2. Saint Mary's College, Moreau Center for the Arts gallery records (saintmarys.edu, 2011) — the Hammes Gallery, Little Theatre Gallery and Sister Rosaire Gallery and their exhibition program.