Pictured (left to right) are Pastor Steven Hamilton, Trish Rathbun, Kathy Hamilton and Cheryl Rathbun.
William Zdinak (1925-1993) was a commercial artist who, in his words “was very busy at the drawing board caught up in the RAT RACE we call success” when a long delayed commission for a religious art show, and a visit from his creator God, forever changed his life and work.
The Story Behind the Painting
According to the Artist’s own account, Zdinak had forgotten his commitment to provide a painting for a religious art show when the voice on the phone jogged his memory with a request for his offering for the show that began the next day. Zdinak pled for one more day and went to work. After numerous failed sketches, at 2:00 A.M. he threw his brushes in the floor in frustration. Then came the vision of the faces; Zdinak scrambled around his house looking for every face that he could find to form the face of Jesus, just in time to keep his promise. Zdinak called it “In His Image,” the image of God in the face of Jesus formed by the faces of humankind.
Who are the people in the painting shown within the Divine Person? They were chosen at random, Mr. Zdinak tells us, and include several of the members of his own family (three sons, a daughter, and Mrs. Mary Zdinak!) as well as world-renowned celebrities.
Some of the better known people are:
1. Dr. Jonas Salk 2. Robert F. Kennedy 3. Ex-Governor of N.Y. State Averell Harriman 4. Mahatma Gandhi 5. President John F. Kennedy
6. Pope John XXIII 7. Dr. Martin Luther King 8. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen 9. Pope Paul VI 10. Pope Pius XII 11. Henry Luce 12. Alexander Graham Bell
In the artist’s words, “It really doesn’t matter which persons are depicted. We are ‘all one in Christ’ as St. Paul has told us. Hurting one, we hurt all; helping one, we help all. That is the idea behind – ‘In His Image’.”