Celebrating 30 Years of Art
Established in 1996, the Strake Jesuit Art Museum marks 30 years of sharing a love of art with our extended Crusader community. More than 600 works grace nearly every space where students, faculty, staff, parents, and visitors gather, a collection spread across our grounds and buildings, woven into the fabric of daily life.
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In those early years, our longtime board member and advisor, Hal Condara ’76, was asked by his son: “Why is there an art museum at school?” Hal, who has been involved with the museum from its founding to the present day, gave him an answer that captures everything the museum aspires to be: “To make you ask that question.”
For 30 years, the Strake Jesuit Art Museum has been doing precisely that, provoking curiosity and inviting contemplation in the spaces between classes, in the moments our students least expect to be engaged. This is what great art does. It surprises and engages, and not just on the first viewing. Theologian David Tracy describes a “Classic” as any work, event, or person possessing an excess of meaning, demanding interpretation and reinterpretation across time, never fully exhausted. For Tracy, Jesus Christ is the Classic par excellence, the one in whom all other classics find their ground. And so, in a Jesuit school, surrounding our students with works of art that ask something of them is itself a type of formation, an education in how to stand before inexhaustible mystery, to be addressed, to respond. The art serves a preparatory purpose through a visual medium. It tills the ground of the mind and heart, preparing them for an encounter with the supreme, inexhaustible mystery in Christ. As we enter our fourth decade, we celebrate this vision and look forward to expanding the collection so that it continues this important preparatory work for generations to come.
The Strake Jesuit Art Museum’s founders, Fr. Brian Zinnamon, S.J., President of Strake Jesuit from 1990 to 2000, and Frank K. Ribelin, formed a friendship in the 1980s at Jesuit Dallas. Fr. Zinnamon was serving as the principal at Jesuit Dallas, and Mr. Ribelin was an active alumnus of the school. Both were art aficionados, and when Fr. Zinnamon moved to Strake Jesuit, they began working together to bring art to our campus. Ultimately, their work led to the founding of the Strake Jesuit Art Museum in 1996. Since that time, the museum has grown, contracted, and grown again, all the while remaining an important and valued part of our educational mission. Mr. Ribelin’s gifts and loans of art formed the core of the collection, which today spans the centuries, ranging from ancient artifacts to 21st-century photography.
The second decade of the Art Museum’s history was a challenging one. Following Mr. Ribelin’s passing and the settlement of his estate, many of the most iconic pieces on campus that had been on loan were removed. In some cases, the museum was offered the opportunity to buy artwork from the estate at a deep discount. In two notable instances, the student body stepped up to fundraise and purchase two of the most beloved sculptures. Fredrick Prescott’s kinetic, life-sized Moose on the Loose, which has over the years become the most recognizable piece and the unofficial mascot of the museum, remained in the collection as a gift from the SJ Student Council. Similarly, the Three Little Pigs, David Miner’s charming, steel wire sculpture of 1989, stayed as a gift of the SJ Key Club.
The third decade of our history embodies the love and appreciation of art by our community. As the collection contracted, other generous donors stepped in to help fill the gaps. Alumni, students’ families, and other Houston art collectors and artists familiar with the museum began to donate pieces large and small, all gratefully received and contributing to the diversity of our collection. In one instance, foreign language faculty member Mrs. Ione Meyer envisioned a Chinese garden space on campus, which led to the gift of a commissioned, life-sized bronze statue of Fr. Matteo Ricci, S.J., the 16th-century Jesuit missionary to China. This was the final large-scale sculpture commission completed by artist Willy Wang, who had his studio here in Houston, before his death in 2021.
Our museum’s most distinctive feature has always been the placement of artworks throughout our campus. No dedicated building holds the collection. Instead, it resides everywhere we gather—outdoors, in classrooms, hallways, offices, meeting spaces, lounging spaces, foyers, and even stairwells. This decentralization allows our students and community to interact with the art every day. They may encounter works by 20th-century masters such as Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, and Robert Motherwell on the first floor of Loyola Hall. In Zinnamon Hall, they may be challenged by the sculpture The Trilogy and Aftermath, which reflects on artist Madeleine Stanley-Jossem’s experience of World Wars I and II. Hanging above The Trilogy and Aftermath, the simplicity and beauty of nine golden arcs titled Suscipe, by sculptor Edward Lee Hendricks, belie the horrors of the event they commemorate. Commissioned for Strake Jesuit, the nine ascending arcs honor the six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter, who were martyred in El Salvador in 1989. Inscribed on the ninth arc: Take, Lord, and receive.
Outside the buildings, outdoor sculptures occupy pride of place and represent one of our greatest strengths as a collection. We are especially fortunate to hold what may be the largest single collection of monumental sculptures by the Texas “master of granite,” Jesús Bautista Moroles. Some other notable sculptors represented include Armando Amaya, David Deming, Herbert Ferber, Jorge Castillo, Fritz Scholder, and Tim Glover. The sculpture garden located to the west of Moody Memorial Library provides benches and a peaceful, tree-covered green space for quiet reflection. Directly in front of the library stands a gift to the collection by the Strake Jesuit Mothers’ Club, Robert Nicpon’s sculpture Call of the Father—The Will to Serve. A Strake Jesuit mother and son served as models for the artist, and the piece suggests not only the call of Jesus to serve his Father’s will, but also the call to all of us to do so. In perhaps the most beautiful placement of the outdoor sculptures, the Moroles work Sun and Moon sits diagonally at the Northeast corner of the Quad: look through the round disk’s square opening, and you will see the Call of the Father carefully framed.
Recent gifts of photography, painting, and prints have marked a period of dramatic growth. We aspire to continue that growth throughout this anniversary year of 2026 by carefully adding works to the collection that will enhance the museum’s mission. Our students are encouraged to live every day with reflection and critical thinking, finding God in all things. The Art Museum provides daily opportunities for precisely this purpose. We are hard at work planning celebratory events for this year, and we sincerely hope that our entire community will join us in celebrating this momentous occasion.
If you would like to receive emails about the 30th Anniversary SJ Art Museum events, please contact artmuseum@strakejesuit.org.
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