Seeing the Unseen: The Art of Peter Brandes in the Ahmanson Collection

Earlier this year, the world lost one of its great artists, Danish polymath Peter Brandes. Gifted in a variety of media including paint, ceramic, stained-glass, and metal sculpture, Peter was a rare combination of profound intellect, creative genius, and generous kindness.

The Ahmansons first met Brandes and his wife, artist Maja Lisa Engelhardt, in Copenhagen in 1994 and quickly became friends for life.

The Supper, Ahmanson Chapel Window, 2006

Brandes and Engelhardt have been renown for their work in sacred spaces around the world, including several in Southern California. They have been largely credited for a renaissance of sacred art in their own country, having created new work for and updated a number of historic Danish churches.

Brandes' legacy is a body of work, sacred and secular, unique in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The works range from ceramic platters done in 2005 to drawings made in the last months of his life in the fall of 2024. Throughout his career Brandes' work balanced themes from Greco-Roman antiquity and the Christian tradition.

Images of Christ's Baptism and the Sower in this show are watercolors and paintings done when Peter was working those same images into stained-glass windows, namely

350-square-foot windows for Christ Chapel at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Some later found their way into stained glass for Calvary Chapel at Biola University. A stained-glass crucifixion was originally intended for the chapel at the Village of Hope in Tustin, California, which features other work by Brandes.

But the most recent images, created during the last season of Brandes' life, are more personal. The images of Engum Krist are reworkings of an image found at a church built around 1100 in Engum not far from the Danish town of Vejle. The image of Christ was found in a renovation and has since been moved to a place it can no longer be seen. Clearly, the image had a profound impact on his imagination. Like many artists, Brandes worked and reworked an image.

Then there are the deeply personal portraits of his wife Maja and self-portraits. They speak for themselves.

Joost Joustra, professor of Theology, Bible and the Arts at King's College, London, joined Roberta Ahmanson and curator John Silvis to discuss Brandes' work and to introduce the exhibition.

To celebrate the opening of this exhibition, jazz vocalist Ruth Naomi Floyd performed a selection of songs from her larger collection, Are We Yet Somehow Alive?

A vocalist and composer, Ruth Naomi Floyd has created a discography dedicated to a sacred jazz and historical expression. She has been at the forefront of creating vocal jazz settings that express theology and justice for more than 30 years. Drawing on three decades of research into the narratives of enslaved Africans in America, Ruth Naomi Floyd has curated a collection that forms a new body of musical compositions, reflecting deeply significant first-person accounts. These narratives explore the experiences of formerly enslaved Africans in America, encapsulating a poignant array of emotions, including sorrow, resilience, love, redemptive beauty, and defiant joy.

Joining Ruth Naomi was Tonality, a vocal ensemble from Los Angeles whose mission is to deliver authentic stories through voice and body to incite change, understanding, and dialogue. Established in 2016, Tonality was recently recognized as a 2024 GRAMMY® winner in New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album for Carla Patullo's "So She Howls" with the Scorchio Quartet.