Maria Gabankova

Czechoslovakian-born Canadian, based in Toronto

The Crucifixion (after Grünewald), 2007

Oil on canvas, 94 × 108 in. (238.8 × 274.3 cm)

Gift of the Westminster Foundation

This large painting is a (slightly smaller) copy of the central exterior panel of Matthias Grünewald’s famous Isenheim Altarpiece (1512–16). The original was painted for the Monastery of Saint Anthony in Isenheim, near Colmar (then Germany, now France). The Antonine monks of the monastery devoted themselves to hospital care, especially for those suffering skin diseases such as ergotism, the symptoms of which are visible throughout the giant, anguished body of Grünewald’s Christ.

The people to the left of Christ are commonly included in Crucifixion imagery: John the Evangelist holds and comforts Mary, mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene kneels and mourns near the foot of the cross. Unusually, however, Grünewald includes John the Baptist (who died years before the crucifixion) to the right of Christ. The Latin inscription in the crook of his arm, Illum oportet crescere me autem minui, is the Vulgate translation of John 3:30: “He must increase; I must decrease.” Karl Barth, who kept a reproduction of this image over his writing desk for fifty years, repeatedly drew attention to this figure: “Witnessing means pointing in a specific direction beyond the self and on to another... In this connection one might recall John the Baptist in Grünewald’s Crucifixion, especially his prodigious index finger. Could anyone point away from himself more impressively and completely?” (Church Dogmatics I/1, 111–12). 

Gabankova was commissioned by the Biblical Museum of Canada in Vancouver, BC, to make this painting to mark the death of Fred Metzger. It was later gifted to Regent College by the Westminster Foundation.  

About the artist

Maria Gabankova was born in former Czechoslovakia and grew up with her brother Jan in the family of the artists Antonia Laník-Gabanek and Jozef Gabanek. Following the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Maria's family left for Austria and later immigrated to Canada. She now lives with her husband Aleš Březina in Toronto. Since 1978 she has exhibited extensively in Canada, the United States, Czech Republic, and elsewhere. In 2007, Piquant Editions published Body Broken/Body Redeemed, a selection of Maria’s works, with 68 pages of full-colour reproductions and an introduction by John Franklin. From 1991 to 2015, Maria was an associate professor at the Ontario College of Art & Design University, in Toronto, where she taught figure drawing, painting, and portraiture. Portraiture is a special focus in the artist's practice with an impressive record of commissioned portraits of well-known figures in Czech and Slovak culture, as well as portraits for the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame.