Showcased this fall in the Green Hall Art Galleries until Nov. 25th, the dramatic works of Robert Doares entitled “Immanuel, God With Us: The Life of Christ in Art” allow the viewer to travel both space and time to scenes of biblical interpretation displayed in stunning detail. To ensure his works captured both historical and theological accuracy, the artist made several pilgrimages to the Holy Land to photograph the landscapes and to conduct research, as well as scouring scholarly journals and archaeological magazines.

“My friend, the late Robert Doares, spent thirty years of his life painting this series,” explains Dale Steele of LightShine Ministries in Burlington, NC, to whom the collection has been on loan for the past seven years from Good News-Crossway Publishing in Wheaton, Illinois. “There are forty-nine graphite drawings and five oil paintings, all of them but one measure a panoramic 15 x 48 inches in a photo-realism style.”

“The impact on persons who see them is profound,” added Steele, who will be on hand in the Green Hall Art Galleries for the November 6th talk and reception from 5:00 to 7:00 that evening. Printed guides with Scriptures for each of the exquisitely-detailed works also connect the impact with the ethereal to add to the experience.

Robert Doares, born in Robeson County in 1911, studied with the renowned illustrator Harvey Dunn at the Grand Central School of Illustration in 1940. Doares went on to illustrate children’s books, religious books and books on biblical themes, as well as artwork for magazine covers for Outdoor Life and Boy’s Life and illustrating books for publishers like Harper’s and Doubleday.

Doares felt the calling to create drawings and paintings based on the life of Christ in 1953 when he decided to spend his life serving God after he realized he owed all his talent to Him. The culmination of his body of work came in 1994 when Crossways Books published his “Immanuel, God With Us: The Life of Christ in Art” series in a book of the same name now available on Amazon.com.