Sister Esther Newport, S.P., (1901–1986) was an American painter, sculptor and art educator who founded the Catholic Art Association

Catholic Art Association

The Catholic Art Association was founded in 1937 by Sister Esther Newport as an organization of artists, art educators and others interested in Catholic art and its philosophy...

 and served as the founding editor of the Christian Social Art Quarterly.

She was born Catherine Newport in Clinton, Indiana

Clinton, Indiana

Clinton is a city in Vermillion County, Indiana, United States. The population was 4,893 at the 2010 census. The city was established in 1829 and is named after DeWitt Clinton, who served as governor of New York from 1817 to 1823. Many of Clinton's original settlers were immigrants working in coal...

, to parents Edward and Cora Sams Newport. Newport entered the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods

Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods

The Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods are an apostolic congregation of Catholic women founded by Saint Theodora Guerin at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, in 1840...

 in 1918 at the age of 17, taking the religious name Sister Esther. A main ministry for many years was teaching middle school and art; in 1930 she began a 34-year stint in the art department of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College

Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College

Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College is a Roman Catholic, four-year liberal arts women's college located northwest of Terre Haute, Indiana, between the Wabash River and the Illinois state line. There is also a small village of the same name located nearby...

. After two years at Marywood School in Evanston, Illinois

Evanston, Illinois

Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...

, she returned to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in 1966 and served as head of the art department there until 1970.

Education

After general studies at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in the 1920s, Newport earned a Bachelors degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1932. Beginning in 1936 she attended Syracuse University

Syracuse University

Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...

 with a major in painting and minor in ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

 sculpture, earning her MFA in 1939.

Accomplishments in her field

As an academic, Newport focused on the Christian theory of art and Christian art education, subjects about which she wrote numerous articles for Christian publications including Orate Fratres, the Sower and Catholic School Interests. She also contributed an article "Art Education" to the New Catholic Encyclopedia

New Catholic Encyclopedia

The New Catholic Encyclopedia is a multi-volume reference work on Roman Catholic history and belief edited by the faculty of The Catholic University of America and originally published by McGraw-Hill in 1967...

.

Newport was chairman of the United States Committee of the Holy Year Exhibit in Rome, 1949-1951. She lectured and directed summer workshops at the Catholic University of America in the 1950s. For her work in the field of religious art, Newport received an honorary doctorate from Saint Mary's College

Saint Mary's College (Indiana)

Saint Mary's College is a private Catholic liberal arts college founded in 1844 by the Sisters of the Holy Cross. It is located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community northeast of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States — as are the University of Notre Dame and Holy...

, Notre Dame, in 1956.

Catholic Art Association

Newport conceived an association for Catholic art educators in 1936 which she called the Catholic College Art Association. After acquiring artist Graham Carey as a philosophical founder for the group, she founded the Catholic Art Association (CAA) in 1937 and served as its first director. The Association strove to encourage commissions of religious art by churches and organizations and well as to educate and elevate Catholic taste. The CAA sponsored exhibitions, conventions, and various publications as well. When the Association began to split severely between art educators (including many teaching sisters and Newport herself) and those more interested in the philosophy of Catholic art (including Graham Carey), Newport left the organization in 1958 and founded the Salve Regina Conference.

Catholic Art Quarterly

She founded the Christian Social Art Quarterly as the official CAA publication in 1937 (renamed the Catholic Art Quarterly in 1938 and later Good Work) and served as its editor until 1940. The publication, seen as a contemporary of the Catholic Worker

Catholic Worker

The Catholic Worker is a newspaper published seven times a year by the Catholic Worker Movement community in New York City. The newspaper was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to make people aware of church teaching on social justice...

and Orate Fratres, centered around the "social character of the arts" for both artists and art educators.

Writers and artists featured in the magazine included Edward Catich

Edward Catich

Father Edward M. Catich was an American Roman Catholic priest, teacher, and calligrapher. He is noted for the fullest development of the thesis that the inscribed Imperial Roman capitals of the Augustan age and after owed their form wholly to the use of the flat brush, rather than to the...

, Ade Bethune

Ade Bethune

Ade Bethune was a Catholic liturgical artist.She was associated with the Catholic Worker Movement, and designed an early masthead of its publication, the Catholic Worker, first used in 1935. She later re-designed this in 1985, replacing one of the men with a woman.Bethune was an advocate of...

 and C.S. Lewis. Many of Newport's own writings were published within the magazine, including a three-part series on the "Christian Theory of Aesthetics," 1939-1940.

Works and honors

Newport's works include paintings, sculptures and bas relief. She was known for her artistic portrayal of religious subjects; several of her paintings are of Catholic nuns.

During her lifetime, Newport exhibited works across the United States, including in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 and the Art Students League of New York

Art Students League of New York

The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...

, and in Rome. She was a three time winner of the Peter Reilly Award at the Hoosier Salon

Hoosier Salon

The Hoosier Salon is a non-profit arts organization that was founded in 1925 by a group called the Daughters of Indiana. That year, the Salon hosted an exhibit in the galleries of the Marshall Field and Company Building in Chicago featuring Indiana artists such as T.C. Steele, J. Ottis Adams and...

in 1937, 1939 and 1943. In 1974 Newport received first prize in needlework at the International Needlework Show in Chicago.