Long-forgotten masterpieces rediscovered in Fayetteville parish

By TARA DOOLEY
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Religion Writer

FAYETTE County has long been known for its four churches with painted interiors that showcase the influence of 19th-century Czech immigrants on the rolling countryside leading to the Texas Hill Country.

But if Ammannsville, Dubina, High Hill and Praha were home to the "painted churches," Fayetteville had the church with the paintings, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

Except the paintings were nowhere to be found. For 35 years, six works painted in the late 1800s in the homeland of the Czech immigrants who inhabited Fayetteville were mere rumors of a colorful past.

But with the help of a new parish priest, church members dedicated to preserving the town's ethnic heritage, and art professionals in Houston, the paintings have been rediscovered. Church officials are not saying how much they are worth, but it's enough to start locking the church doors.

Returned to the walls of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, these works have attracted tourists to this old-fashioned town of 261 residents.

"This thing fascinated me from the time they found the (first) painting," said church member Tom Pearson. "I was just in awe, the beauty of it. The blessing that we found it. This is the church's heritage."

It's a story that would turn any Antiques Roadshow junkie green with envy. It begins shortly after the Rev. Jack Maddux Jr. took up his post in Fayetteville in June 2002.

Maddux decided to "make a nest" for himself in a previously unused part of the rectory. As he cleared out an extra bedroom, he discovered a 36-by-49-inch painting hidden behind an old dresser and mirror.

"I pulled it out and said, `This is beautiful,' " Maddux said. "I set it up and admired it for a few days."

Though no art historian, Maddux had taken some painting classes as a college student. He could tell that the faded blue Madonna holding the Christ child and handing a rosary to St. Dominic had been put to canvas by a painter of skill.

Before deciding what to do with the painting, which some are calling Holy Mother of the Rosary, Maddux asked a parishioner to see whether it was worth cleaning up and framing.

It wound up in the hands of Jerry Avera of Houston's Allart Framing and Gallery. Avera looked up the artist, Johann Ignaz Berger, in a French reference book and discovered that he was a prolific Czech ecclesiastical painter of the 19th century.

Avera called in Antonio Loro, a painter, appraiser and restorer who with his wife runs St. Mark Fine Arts Conservation on West Alabama.

Loro looked beyond the age and neglect of the painting and recognized dark, rich colors typical of Moravia, once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was impressed with the artist's sense of composition, balance and symbolism. After five other paintings were found at different locations, he paid a visit to the parish to let its members know that they had discovered treasures.

"To me, this painting belongs (in) a museum," said Loro, a native of Italy and a third-generation art restorer. "They are very lucky to have them."

The paintings may be good enough to hang on museum walls, but their history connects them to Fayetteville and the church, and they belong in their original home, longtime parishioners said.

Indeed, the paintings were tied to the founding of the church in 1870, a labor of devotion by a small farming community of Czech immigrants.

When Czechs arrived in the area in the mid-19th century, they joined a community made up predominantly of German speakers, said Irene Polansky, a church member who founded the town's history museum with her late husband, Louis. After negotiating with the Catholic bishop, then seated in Galveston, the small congregation was promised a Czech priest. In 1872, he arrived from Moravia.

As the church was being built, members of the Catholic community donated items for it, including the paintings. How and when the paintings found their way to a small Texas town remains unclear.

Loro's wife, Gretchen Van Atta Loro, believes that one of the Czech immigrants probably knew the painter back in the old country and commissioned the works.

"It is so rare to find original artwork in any American church," she said. "To find this small country church with original art is mind-boggling."

Over the years, St. John the Baptist Catholic Church changed forms. A new building was consecrated in 1912, according to a history of the church researched by Louis "Buddy" Polansky, who died last month. The Czech paintings were hung in the new building.

In 1969, a new building was constructed to conform with the prescriptions of the recently completed Second Vatican Council. Statues such as the large angels offering holy water were removed. The six gold-framed paintings disappeared.

When Maddux found the painting in the rectory, artworks that had spent decades stored on church property and in the hands of other church organizations began to emerge, often covered with the grime of age.

One painting -- the 56-by-89-inch painting of St. Martin of Tours -- was found behind the altar of St. Martin's Catholic Church, a little wood church in Warrenton. The other rediscovered paintings included a 49-by-104-inch depiction of St. John the Baptist and Jesus, a scene of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, another of St. Peter and St. Paul, and one of Our Lady Queen of Heaven.

"It is so unlikely that any of this happened," said Gretchen Van Atta Loro. "That is what makes it so interesting."

And expensive.

The church paid Antonio Loro to restore the paintings and Avera to make 22-karat gold leaf, hand-carved frames. Avera said the tabernacle frame for St. John the Baptist measures 6 by 11 1/2 feet and weighs 600 pounds. The restoration involved two to three people working two months on each of five of the paintings, Loro said. One painting could not be restored and had to be re-created.

The church also reconstructed the wall behind the altar to display the rediscovered treasures, and that led to hefty costs for mold remediation and air-conditioning work. The total cost of the project was about $500,000.

"It was a strain, because I was the one who had to sign all the checks," the parish priest said. "Every time I turned around, there was a bill."

Not everyone in the parish of nearly 300 families was convinced that this was the best way to spend church funds, church members said. But others were inspired by the paintings' connection to the town's and the church's proud Czech past, said longtime church member Helen Mikus.

"I think it will make people aware of the heritage of their grandparents, because they sacrificed to send over for the paintings," she said.