130-year-old sculpture donated to High Museum

Henry Church (1836–1908), A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed, 1888, sandstone and iron. High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

Henry Church (1836–1908), A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed, 1888, sandstone and iron. High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

The High Museum of Art has gained ownership a 130-year-old sculpture.

The Henry Church Jr. work, “A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed,” depicts a shepherd trying to protect a lamb from a mountain lion. The shepherd’s dog is attacking the lion, and the lamb seems oblivious to the surrounding chaos.

“The sculpture’s references are both religious and social, as Church and his family provided safe haven to enslaved African-Americans escaping to freedom before Emancipation,” a press release said. Church grew up in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and died in 1908.

At 4 feet tall and 7 feet long, the sandstone object is the artist’s largest known sculpture. It will be featured in the reinstallation of the High’s folk and self-taught art collection galleries, set to open in October.

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The circa 1888 piece was donated by the Forward Arts Foundation in celebration of its 50th anniversary, a press release said. The organization purchased the sculpture from Atlanta collectors Carl and Marian Mullis, who have donated “hundreds of works” to the High Museum of Art and Georgia Museum of Art collections since the 1990s.

The sculpture has been on loan to the High from the Mullises since 2010 but now has a “permanent home at the High,” said Katherine Jentleson, curator of folk and self-taught art.

“Over the years it has become a favorite for visitors of all ages, but especially for our school and family audiences, who connect with the work’s dramatic narrative, subject matter and socially responsible message,” said Jentleson.

The Foundation operates the Swan Coach House in Buckhead and provides grants to nonprofits that promote the arts. It has aided the acquisition of 10 works in the High’s collection, including Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt and Camille Pissarro.

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