The seventh Biennial Nationwide Juried Catholic Arts Competition and Exhibition will be held at the Saint Vincent Gallery this fall. Entries were being accepted through August 3 for the exhibit, which will open on Sunday, October 28. The exhibition will run during regular gallery hours through December 2.

The nationwide exhibition was established in 2001 by the late Brother Nathan Cochran, O.S.B., (1957-2014). In his 32 years at Saint Vincent as curator of the art collections and director of The Saint Vincent Gallery, Brother Nathan curated and designed over 60 exhibitions. His untiring pursuit to cultivate and revive the sacred arts was the catalyst for the creation of the Nationwide Juried Catholic Arts Competition and Exhibition.

The competition has received national attention, including distribution by the Catholic News Agency (CNA) and the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN).

This year’s juror is Dr. Elizabeth Lev, a professor of art and architecture at the Italian campuses of Christendom College and Duquesne University.

Brother Nathan wanted to give artists who engage Catholic subject matter an opportunity to dialogue with church communities and pastors in the hope of creating new and original art works for their churches and liturgical spaces. For the Third Nationwide Juried Catholic Arts Competition and Exhibition, Brother Nathan successfully enlisted famed British art historian Sister Wendy Beckett to serve as judge. She praised his endeavors, noting that“ artists often come to understand their faith by the actual creation of artworks. We need these art works, these attempts by artists known or unknown, to share with us their understanding of what it means to be a Christian. Would that there were hundreds of Brother Nathans in all countries!”