The Faces of Christ collection, housed at the Cathedral of Toledo in Spain, highlights a collection brought together by a lover of art who has searched all his life for works of our century representing Christ and His message.

The initiator, Steen Heidemann (1) is an art historian by training, an amateur by passion, he does not have in his quest the ambition to speculate with art, nor to develop theories on painting, or to carry out a sociological investigation into societal representations. He seeks in today's creation the representation of the face of a being belonging to the visible human and the invisible divine. For this amateur, outside of any institution, any doxa, any constraint, it was an adventure that would take him on multiple journeys and encounters.

The object of his quest of more than 20 years is neither intellectual nor political. It’s a personal journey. It is the search for the representation of this face represented in art for two thousand years which still inspires artists today.

These were not easy works for him to find because, for several decades, it was not a priority for the Church to be interested in images of an incarnate Christ. This type of representation was also not sought after by galleries and institutions.

Becoming an explorer in unknown lands, Steen Heidemann had to arm himself with patience and attention to discover the work of artists who had confronted the figure of Christ. For them too, representing such a face had become a solitary adventure, belonging to the intimate domain. Created by an inner necessity, born from a mysterious inspiration, artists rarely showed them. Some, however, had orders intended for private chapels, places away from the world. Some, indeed very few, were intended for more visible sacred places.

The Faces of Christ collection is not proscriptive and the diversity of expressions is great. The works have been created by artists who refer to beauty, truth and goodness and in which the message of Christ is clearly presented, in a pastoral manner. These are painters who explore new, very diverse and often innovative paths, each within their own culture from Tanzania to Brazil.

It is important to understand that this discoverer was not a collector of images illustrating a theme. Essentially an amateur, he confronted many works and chose a few, those which provoked a sensitive encounter in him, the discovery of a presence. This exploration was for Steen Heidemann an intense and fruitful inner adventure which gave rise to the imperative need to share it. It was the beginning for him of creating traveling exhibitions of the Faces of Christ collection.

Today the collection has found a home on a semi-permanent basis. This iconic place is a jewel: The Cathedral of Toledo with its cloister. This collection of works will constitute the first stepping stone in a museum space dedicated to the visual representation of Christ. There will also be temporary exhibitions around His Image as well as exchanges of ideas, meetings and conferences.
Given the large number of works of art in the collection, some will continue their world tour.

May this collection be a springboard of a reawakening and rebirth of Christian art.

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(1) Steen Heidemann is Danish by birth, educated in England, historian of Art and Architecture (Oxford) and Management (Reading). Organiser of more than 25 impressionist exhibitions around Europe, often in national galleries from Helsinki to Zagreb. Converted from a secularised family and received in Westminster Cathedral, London, he later married a French woman and has four children.