Among the countless images of Mary throughout the ages are those depicting her as a Madonna of Color.
In such likeness, the Blessed Mother has inspired a wide-ranging devotion at shrines around the world, including those at Częstochowa in Poland, Guadalupe in Mexico and Montserrat in Spain.
In the Camden Diocese, the serene beauty and motherly warmth projected in Black Madonnas have also inspired numerous paintings by Brother Mickey O’Neill McGrath, OSFS. An award-winning artist and author of 21 books, Brother Mickey has penned a new 123-page, lavishly illustrated book titled “Madonnas of Color,” available from Clear Faith Publishing just as May, Mary’s month, approached.
Brother Mickey, who lives and works in Camden, is known for a bright, inclusive and energetic palette that seems to lifts the works off the page. His celebrations of Mary as the beloved Madonna of Color in this book exemplify that approach. Vibrant hues run in patchwork-quilt fashion through pages filled with images and stories designed, Brother Mickey said, to help faithful see the importance of the Black Madonna and the peace she can bring to today’s racially divided world.
He explained how he painted this Gospel message into his depiction of Mary, wrapped in the warm embrace of a quilt for a Juneteenth Madonna with “Jesus seen in her womb.” It’s one example of the images featured in the book he created to “help us see Mary’s crucial importance.”
That vision has inspired him over the years to go on pilgrimages to Montserrat, Guadalupe and the Cathedral of Our Lady in Chartres, France. On a mission trip to Kenya for AIDS relief, he shared images of a Black Mary and Joseph during a speech to the staff of a medical facility near Nairobi.
“I could tell by the looks on their faces that they had never seen images that looked like them,” he said, explaining that the experience was one of many along his personal pilgrimage with Madonnas of Color that set him on the path to sharing her with as many people as he could.
Over the years, African-American spirituality has also become a profound influence on his life and work, said Brother Mickey, speaking particularly of Sister Thea Bowman, a Catholic convert and Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration who was designated a Servant of God in 2018. The perseverance of Augustus Tolton, who was born a slave, to become the first American Black ordained a priest, was among others whose faith journeys inspired him.
Brother Mickey studied art at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., and later received a master of fine arts degree in painting at the American University in Washington, D.C. For 11 years, he served as an associate professor of studio art and art history at DeSales University in Pennsylvania.
As he became more focused on “the presence of God in our individual talents and uniquely blessed to realize that God is not one size fits all,” he transitioned in 1994 to working full time as an artist who focuses on social justice and “finding beauty in the margins.”
He received his first commission in that genre – a joyful painting of the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth in Luke 1:39-56 – at the request of the Visitation Sisters of Minneapolis and has produced a great body of work since then that calls people to appreciate diversity.
“The more I research the history of racism,” he said, “the more I feel that images of Mary Madonna of Color remind us what following her Son means.”
“Madonnas of Color” by Brother Mickey O’Neill McGrath, OSFS, is available from Clear Faith Publishing at clearfaithpublishing.com and The Salesian Shop at salesianshop.com
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