Santa Faustina Kowalska 1931

2005

Santa Faustina Kowalska 1931, 2005. León Ferrari (Argentinian, 1920–2013). Pen and black ink on wove paper; sheet: 29.5 x 21 cm (11 5/8 x 8 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Leon Ferrari Foundation 2019.196 © León Ferrari Created during the last decade of Argentinian artist León Ferrari’s life, this drawing presents a decorative flourish of cursive text. Beginning in the 1960s, the artist created a series of drawings that presented or evoked the written word in response to censorship in his native country. Here, Ferrari presented the Polish nun Maria Faustina Kowalska’s (1905–1938) description of Hell, evoking a juxtaposition between otherworldly tortures with those enacted during the political turmoil he had witnessed during his lifetime. León Ferrari created several works that incorporated texts authored by Maria Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun.