Works by the late Russian religious artist Alexis Arapoff are on display at the Burns Library.
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Works by the late Russian religious artist Alexis Arapoff are on display at the Burns Library. |
Six other Stations from the series were donated by a collector to Boston College years ago and hung in houses on Upper Campus. Some of them were recalled as having been exhibited to art students in the mid-1980s. But since then, their whereabouts have been unclear.
Exhibition organizers hope the Stations on display at Burns through Lent will spark the memory of a visitor who may have seen the paintings' missing companions.
"Finding them is the reason for this show," said the artist's daughter, singer Mary Arapoff of Arlington, who lent the Burns the paintings by her father currently on display, and whose Rublev Choir gave a concert of Russian sacred music at the library Feb. 21.
"It's thought they might be in a closet somewhere," she said. "Someone needs to go and hunt."
She spoke as she showed a visitor to the Burns the haunting paintings from her collection that her father had done of Christ's Passion. They include a scene of the Crucifixion in which a disconsolate Mary Magdalen weeps at the foot of the Cross, and a poignant depiction of Mary holding the broken body of her Son.
"I've been praying we find the other six," she said. "These are so powerful. I don't know what the others would be."
See the Calendar section on page 8 for examples of the Arapoff images.