Jesus in a Crowd (after Ensor)

Date1991

Maker Jeffry Mitchell American, born 1958

Label TextOriginally from Seattle, artist Jeffry Mitchell adopts humor and craft techniques to playfully probe at deeper truths. Here, Mitchell tackles issues of artistic and devotional lineage with the wry irony of a prankster, reimagining James Ensor’s late 19th-century painting Christ’s Entry into Brussels. In Mitchell’s interpretation, the chaotic crowds welcoming Christ are replaced by a sea of plaster clowns—alternately smiling, grimacing, or seemingly melting like pools of whipped cream—while Jesus himself appears as an oversized puppet-like knit doll. The carnivalesque scene is poignant, revulsive, and comical—a simultaneously ridiculous and sincere view of humanity.

Object number92.136

Photo CreditPhoto: Scott Leen

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Contemporary Art: Made in Seattle - A Northwest Summer, May 4, 2006 - July 23, 2006. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Poke in the Eye: Art of the West Coast Counterculture, June 21 - September 2, 2024.

Credit LineGift of the artist

Dimensions8 x 12 x 7 ft. Each panel: 84 x 36 x 12 in.

MediumPlaster, plywood, and papier mache with watercolor, acrylic, and latex paint