Stephen J & M Palmer

1882–1965

Exhibition Dates: December 12, 2008 – January 31, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, December 12, 2008, 5:30 – 8:00 P.M.

SACRIFICIAL LOVE SOCIETY

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#12

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#24

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#68

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#74

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP #89

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#98

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#100

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#103

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#109

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#118

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#162

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#192

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#203

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#213

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#224

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#225

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#229

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#238

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#239

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#241

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#251

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#268

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#271

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#286

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#288

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

GSP#313

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#2

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#5

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#6

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#7

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#9

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#14

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#15

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#16

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#17

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#18

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#21

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#22

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#29

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#30

Mixed media on paper

31 x 22 inches

c.1950-1965

H#33

Mixed media on paper

22 x 15 inches

c.1950-1965

H#37

Mixed media on paper

22 x 15 inches

c.1950-1965

H#44

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#45

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#47

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#48

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#52

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#53

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#57

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#59

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#60

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#64

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#65

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#66

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#67

Mixed media on paper

15 x 11 inches

c.1950-1965

H#69

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#72

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#73

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#75

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#76

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#78

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#80

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#81

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#82

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#84

Mixed media on paper

20 x 10 inches

c.1950-1965

H#85

SACRIFICIAL LOVE SOCIETY

In our final exhibition of 2008, and ushering in 2009, Carl Hammer Gallery, in collaboration with Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York, presents the first solo exhibition of the remarkable work of Stephen (Jesus and Mary) Palmer.  Born in 1882, Palmer spent his entire life in the Mid West moving first from Illinois to Minnesota, then moving on to Wisconsin later in life, and then back to Mankato, Minnesota where he remained, mostly bed ridden until he died of a heart attack in 1965.

Stephen Palmer produced a massive record of Christian faith in the guise of roughly 400 known and recently discovered gouache paintings on paper.  As private devotional works, the demonstrate the layered complexity and subversive potential of religious imager.  As artifacts uncovered, they speak about an era.  As a collective effort, they hold clues to reconstructing the psychology and motivations of an individual driven by an obsessive-compulsive mysticism.

Palmer’s paintings are icons in both the traditional and the semiotic sense, likenesses of that which they invoke.  The central forms art tattoo-like distillations of crosses, busts or full-length figures of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, sometimes saints, or the Holy Family, and Nativity scenes as well.  Sometimes he conflates Catholic symbols of chalice, cross, rosary and figure in elegant hybrid forms dense with spiritual valiance.  Like Byzantine icons, Palmer’s holy figures hold loaded gestures and standardized attributes making them immediately recognizable – the Virgin’s heart ringed with flowers, Christ’ heart crowned with thorns – details so banal they hardly bear repeating.  The Paintings are less evangelism than communication with fellow Christian initiates through a common visual vocabulary that relies on that very repetition.  Icons are simply decoded because they are so invariable, so ubiquitous to the insider.  They are a succinct visual statement of faith, marking the faithful in visual forms wide ranging, yet familiar to the most devout fellow traveler in the landscape of faith and devotional transcendence.

Surrounding the central iconic images, however, are uniquely abstracted and elaborately drawn decorative border designs.  No two are alike.  Creating these delicate and intricate borders, Palmer literally frames our experience of the deity.  And in so doing, he necessitates himself.  He becomes the necessary channel through whom God communicates.  Palmer sets up the conditions in the form of a laborious and deliberated frame in which the visage of the deity will appear.  In essence, in each painting he builds a visual shrine with the frame also functioning to contain the radiating energy that would seem to stream out in all directions. 

The two strains, figurative drawings and decorative borders, combine to compose what becomes Palmer’s signature format:  vertical rigorously symmetrical compositions including figure at center framed with articulated border.  The work evolves graphically, with confident lines; stylistically, with coherence within and between works; and thematically, with specific expressions of Palmer’s spirituality and mystical existence.[i]