Curatorial Research Associate Kyle Mancuso talks with paper conservator Snow Fain about Bruce Onobrakpeya’s print series.
Fig. 1: Conservator Snow Fain at work on removing the Fourteen Stations of the Cross prints from their polyester casings.
This past spring, the High opened Bruce Onobrakpeya: The Mask and the Cross, the renowned Nigerian artist’s first large museum show in the United States. The exhibition, which explores the Catholic imagery present throughout the artist’s work, focuses on the High’s series of Onobrakpeya’s Fourteen Stations of the Cross, prints that tell the story of Jesus Christ’s final days from his condemnation by Pontius Pilate (fig. 2) — Roman governor of Judea — to his burial in the sepulchre (fig. 3).