Angel of the Annunciation

  In 1998, Jane Blaffer Owen commissioned sculptor Stephen de Staebler to create this commanding cast bronze sculpture of the Archangel Gabriel (or Gabriela) for the south entrance of the Roofless Church., Most Reverend Marcel Rooney, Primate of The Benedictine Confederation, Rome, dedicated Angel of the Annunciation June 10, 1999. De Staebler seeks to represent […]

Descent of the Holy Spirit

  Sculptor Jacques Lipchitz’s Descent of the Holy Spirit (Notre Dame de Liesse), is one of two castings made from an original bronze sculpture located in the Roman Catholic Church d’Assy, Haute Savoie, France. In 1960, Jane Blaffer Owen bought this cast for the Roofless Church. About the sculpture, Church of Scotland minister, former Warden […]

Suzanne Glemét Memorial Gates

  In 1957 Jane Owen met with project collaborators in her daughter Janie’s New York apartment. The project was the celebrated Roofless Church to be built in New Harmony, Indiana, and the collaborators were architect Philip Johnson and sculptor Jacques Lipchitz. Together the group brainstormed an east entrance to the walled grounds of a Roofless […]

Peace Arch

  The coil-built stoneware Peace Arch was executed in 1971 by East Coast artist Bruno LaVerdiere and installed in New Harmony in 1988. It was moved to its current location on JBO Sanctuary grounds just west of the Roofless Church, in 1993. The inscription at the base of the sculpture reads: “This gateway is for […]

Pietà

  Located in the east end of the Roofless Church is a bronze figurative work known as Pietà. Finished in 1989 by internationally known California artist Stephen de Staebler, the bronze is also called Death and Resurrection. Through his characteristic style, fragmenting the body, Stephen de Staebler represents the Pietà. And taking inspiration from Michelangelo’s […]

Polish Memorial

  Situated in the southeast garden of the Roofless Church, this sculpture of the Holy Trinity, by Ewa Żygulska, is an interpretation of a 15th-century wood carving in the National Museum of Kraków. In the Middle Ages, when few could read, artists used a scale to represent importance. For example, in this sculpture, the figure […]