Mitchell Fadief

Mitchell Fadief is an American artist who left behind no paper trail, except for this chalk and charcoal rendering of the Nativity, dated 1946. His mixed media drawing is pure Art Deco in its geometric arrangement of sleek lines and repetitive forms with few distinguishing details. This is not the charmingly rustic stable in Bethlehem we have come to love from Christmas cards. It is a sterile birthing box without a piece of straw. Fadief has set Mary and Jesus apart, an unapproachable object of worship, gleaming with sparks of light like a polished stone sculpture. The ox and ass, formed in a perfect chorus line, keep a respectful distance from the Holy Mother and Child, drawn back in awe and wonder at their incarnate Creator. This contemporary Christmas tableaux recalls the phrase Roman Catholic Social Activist Dorothy Day used as the title of her autobiography: The Long Loneliness. Of the Virgin Mother who will one day cradle the corpse of her crucified son just as she now rocks him in infant form. Of the God Man who “came unto his own and his own received him not (John 1:11, KJV).” Perhaps, of the artist, as well. Fadief scribbled the following cryptic lines on the back of this thoroughly modern manger scene: “And he asked: ‘What is love?’ One form of love is a forgiveness of those who have not the capacity to forgive.” (John Kohan)

From The Holy Bible in the King James Version [KJV] (Thomas Nelson: 1976)