He joined the faculty at Saint Louis University in 1944, teaching English Literature and Art History. He received the distinguished Nancy McNeir Ring Award for outstanding teaching in the 1970s. He painted 42 rooms and acquired furniture in an effort to preserve Samuel Cupples House. He has completed 110 semesters of teaching at SLU.
And now at age 90, Maurice McNamee, S.J., shows no signs of slowing down. His most recent achievement was the publication of his book Vested Angels: Eucharistic Allusions in Netherlander Painting.
In honor of McNamee’s 90th birthday, three lectures were presented in the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art on Saturday, Nov. 6. “An Afternoon of Art” touched upon three topics, one presented by McNamee himself.
Cynthia Stolhans, chair of the Fine and Performing Arts Department, organized the event and began the celebration by recognizing McNamee.
“[Fr. McNamee] is a man who has touched our lives in various ways-as a teacher, scholar, mentor and colleague,” Stolhans said. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate his birthday.”
The first speaker, Dr. Carolyn Valone, a former SLU teacher, presented “Women in the Gesu.” Valone talked about the contributions of wealthy women in 16th century Rome. They supported the Jesuit order and served as patrons for the fashioning of chapels in the Church of the Gesu, the “mother church of the Society of Jesus.”
Dr. Charles Cuttler, an art scholar at the University of Iowa, presented the next topic, “A New View of Bosch’s Temptation of St. Anthony.” Hieronymus Bosch, a Netherlander known for his works depicting the combination of religious subjects with fantastic or demonic imagery, painted “Temptation of St. Anthony” circa 1500.
Following Cuttler’s lecture, McNamee delivered the final presentation. Terry Dempsey, S.J., director of MOCRA, introduced McNamee, listing his major achievements at SLU.
“[Mac] was several steps ahead of his superiors,” Dempsey said. “He sees the possibility and hope that are often overlooked by many of us.”
McNamee discussed the significance of the early Netherlander school of art in his lecture “Vested Angels and the Portinari Altarpiece.” McNamee explained that the Netherlander painters were largely ignored by the outside art world before their use of color and minute detail with the then-new oil medium caught the attention of Max Friedlander, director of an art museum in Berlin.
McNamee discussed the symbolism of vested angels, a motif that had become frequent in Eastern Byzantine churches. He described how he noticed the early Netherlanders’ frequent use of the vested angels and brought this to the attention of Art Bulletin, a journal which published McNamee’s article on the subject in 1973.
