Big Baby is F. Scott Hess' enormous new depiction of himself as a grinning man-child, diapered and spreadeagled on a blue blanket decorated with nursery animals. It marks a milestone in his remarkable career. Twice life-size in scale, it is Hess' first painting after his completion of a four-year-long mural project at the B'nai Jehudah synagogue, located in a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas. Hess was commissioned to paint two "pods" of images to wrap around the walls beneath gentle arches of windows above two large meeting rooms. The first pod was a narrative series showing the history of the synagogue's construction and the community that supported it, and the second was a series of images from the Tanakh-the Jewish Old Testament.
Hess was an unusual choice for the project. "Not being a religious person, it is a little odd," he laughs. "I had always wanted to do the Sistine Chapel, but I realized that as a non-believer I wasn't going to get a commission for anything like that..." He began the project delighted to follow in the footsteps of the great masters of the RenaissanceMichelangelo, Vasari and Raphael, and spent three months creating a spectacular series of sketches of the first pod of murals for approval, cleverly connecting the events of each panel to the next in a loop of narrative.
This story is from the July 2023 edition of American Art Collector.
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This story is from the July 2023 edition of American Art Collector.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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