Timothy p schmalz biography images

Pope Francis greets sculptor Timothy Schmalz at the unveiling of the monument to migrants and refugees, "Angels Unawares," at St. Send your thoughts to Letters to the Editor. Learn more August 8, Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email to a friend Print Timothy Schmalz sees Jesus in the homeless, the hungry, the sick, the prisoners, the desperate refugees and migrants.

He views himself as an evangelist who preaches worldwide, not with his mouth, but with his hands, casting the least among us from Matthew into exquisite — and haunting — life-size bronze sculptures.

Timothy schmalz angels unaware

The year-old Canadian Catholic's most famous sculpture, "Homeless Jesus," depicts a gaunt man lying on a bench covered by a thin blanket, with enough space for someone to sit at his exposed feet, which bear the nail wounds of his crucifixion. Schmalz says he hopes that "Homeless Jesus" — now displayed outdoors in more than cities worldwide — evokes in others the same epiphany he recalls when he spotted a shivering homeless man under a thin blanket on a bench in downtown Toronto at Christmastime in That's the least of my brother,' " Schmalz says.

I believe it was a true encounter with the divine at that moment. In other desperate souls living on the streets of Toronto, Schmalz saw vague reflections of himself as a young sculptor.

Timothy schmalz

A destitute art school dropout — he had hated what passed for contemporary art and wanted to sculpt in the tradition of master Christian artists like Michelangelo, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Auguste Rodin — Schmalz lived four years in his early 20s in a tiny room in a mostly abandoned factory in Toronto. He slept on a wooden board that doubled as a sculpting bench and had no kitchen, rare heating and sporadic water service in the toilet and sink down the hall.

Outside ambled sex workers, people dealing illegal drugs, people who were homeless. Jacobs, Ontario, a quiet hamlet southwest of Toronto. Schmalz's way of hearing, seeing and sculpting the Word would propel him from a young self-taught artist living in an old factory to a well-known sculptor meeting Pope John Paul II and later Pope Francis at the Vatican.

Emma Monastery in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, has 12 empty stools invite visitors to sit with Jesus as he breaks bread.