St. Ann's Church Complex - (401) 356-0713

St Ann ARts and Cultural Center

New England's Sistine Chapel

St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center boasts the largest fresco collection in North America
WOONSOCKET - Walk through the doors of the former St. Ann Church and you might feel as though you've traveled through time and space.

Elaborate religious murals cover the ceilings and walls, scenes that recall those created 500 years ago in Renaissance Italy. There are saints, prophets, apostles and angels, all with flowing hair and robes and depicted in brilliant colors easily visible from the floor.

"What you are looking at is North America's largest collection of fresco paintings," says guide Walter Rathbun. "This has been called New England's Sistine Chapel."

The twin-spired, century-old, brick edifice on Cumberland Street is no longer a place of worship. In 2000 the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence announced that due to high maintenance costs and a dwindling congregation, St. Ann's Parish would be combined with another in the city, and the church would close.

But thanks to the efforts of a handful of volunteers like Rathbun, the doors remain open. They created a non-profit corporation - the St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center - and turned the magnificent sanctuary into a museum. In the early years the Diocese leased the building to the non-profit for a dollar a year. The group eventually purchased the property for the same price.
The choir loft view of the former St. Ann Church in Woonsocket.
The non-profit sometimes struggles financially. At one time 1,500 or more celebrants would crowd the church for Sunday Mass, and heating a building of that size is costly. Turning off the furnace is not an option, as cold winter temperatures would damage the frescoes.

Nonetheless, the all-volunteer staff carries on. "This is a building the church couldn't afford to keep open," says Rathbun, who chairs the board of directors. "But we have. This is our 11th year."

Mill-working immigrants from Quebec built St Ann, completing the structure in 1917, but the frescoes didn't go up until the 1940s, when itinerant artist Guido Nincheri arrived in Woonsocket. His story is as inspiring as his art.

Nincheri, an Italian immigrant, learned his craft in Florence, one of the great wellsprings of the Renaissance. He took his inspiration from the Old Masters of that age, da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Nincheri moved to North America around 1915, and was soon receiving commissions to decorate churches and public buildings in Quebec and New England. His work can be seen in the Boston Opera House, the Roger Williams Park Museum of Natural History and Planetarium in Providence, and the Church of the Madonna della Difesa in Montreal.

"Around 1940 the parishioners at St. Ann's decided it was time to add some color and decoration," says Dominique Doiron, another volunteer at the Cultural Center. "To get some ideas, the pastor began touring other churches around New England. He stopped in at St. Matthew's in Central Falls, where Nincheri was doing some work, and he liked what he saw."

Nincheri was a master of the fresco technique perfected by the old masters he so admired. The style is demanding because the paint is applied to wet plaster; once the material has dried, it's too late to correct mistakes. The advantage is that the paint bonds with the plaster, and won't chip or flake off.
Bible scenes are the subject for most of the frescoes, stained glass windows and other decorations at St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center.
"The first time Nincheri entered St. Ann's, there was no plaster on the ceiling, just rough cement," Doiron says. "He became excited, because he knew it would be an opportunity to paint in the true fresco style, on fresh plaster, like Michelangelo."

The fresco artist must know exactly what he will paint before he puts a brush to a wall. To meet that challenge, Nincheri created sketches and watercolors which he then projected onto large sheets of paper. A team of assistants would trace the image and punch small holes along the tracings. They then mixed lime-based plaster, spread it on the area they were ready to paint, and let it dry to the right consistency. The paper was then placed over the plaster and dusted with charcoal. The dust that went through the holes left an outline.

"For seven years there was wooden scaffolding making its way around the interior of the church, and weddings, funerals, and Mass continued around it," says Doiron. "Nincheri couldn't lay down the way Michelangelo did when he painted the Sistine Chapel. He was a hunchback, so he needed a stool, a much less comfortable arrangement."

Nincheri's work at the church eventually went well beyond the frescoes. The Stations of the Cross are oil paintings created by the artist and his assistants. The mosaic above the altar is his work as well. He also designed the marble altar and the marble stonework around it, including the banister, the podium and the steps. The stone was imported from Cararra, Italy, and carved by craftsmen from that region.

The bill for all that effort: $30,000, a hefty sum for a parish of mill workers in the 1940s.

For some long-time Woonsocket residents, the frescoes are more than artwork - they're a family album. When looking for models, Nincheri went no further than the parish, asking locals to pose as angels and saints.

The figure of St. Joaquin is the late Victor Vechman, whose family ran a printing business. His grand-daughters are now on the cultural center's board of directors. And Millie Savoie Tellier modeled for the Virgin Mary. Now in her 80s, she still stops in from time to time to view the paintings. Nincheri himself is up there, too; the face of St. Peter is his self portrait.

Nincheri wanted schoolgirl Marguerite Forget to pose for the angels and virtues that appear on small medallions along the walls, but her parents, conservative immigrants from Quebec, said no. The artist then made a habit of visiting the family's home for front porch chats. Whenever the daughter brought out refreshments, he'd study her face until he had memorized the details. There was no need to bring the girl to his studio.

As an adult, Forget was well known in Woonsocket for the work she did for various charities. When she died many years later, her obituary read: "Marguerite Forget will never be forgotten, for she's the face of the angels at St. Ann's."

Bible scenes are the subject for most of the frescoes, stained glass windows and other decorations. The Last Judgment appears on the dome, the Virgin Mary above the altar. On the ceiling of the nave (the long section filled with pews) are scenes from the life of Christ, including the Baptism, the Feeding of 5,000, and the Agony in the Garden.

Two figures representing Adam and Eve were originally nude, but at the urging of parish leaders, the artist added fig leaves for modesty's sake. Old Testament prophets appear high on the walls of the nave; Sophonic, a minor prophet whose writings nonetheless inspired requiem compositions by Mozart and Beethoven, is fittingly above the music balcony. The 40 stained glass windows on the sides of the building - created by artisans in Chartres, France - depict scenes from the Old Testament. "You could take a young child here and tell him Bible stories - with illustrations," says Rathbun.

Two murals at the back of the church depart from the Biblical theme. "As Nincheri was finishing his frescoes, the parish council asked him to commemorate the soldiers and sailors who fought in the war," Doiron says. "You don't find too many paintings of war in a church, but we have two."

"One painting includes sailors drowning, and the other includes a soldier with his foot shot off," Rathbun notes. "Nincheri didn't want to hide anything. There was no sugarcoating the war."

These days the St. Ann Art and Cultural Center is open for tours on Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., from early April to late October. The building is also leased for events, mostly weddings. It's booked up to 2012. No Catholic marriages take place there, however, because the building is no longer a church. A group of Christian Evangelicals rents the sacristy for their Sunday services, and the basement hall is often rented by community groups.

The Cultural Center welcomes donations, as well as volunteers. "Everyone is encouraged to get involved," says Rathbun. "You don't have to be Catholic and you don't have to be from Woonsocket. We've had people here from all over Rhode Island and Massachusetts."

For more information on tours, bookings, and volunteer opportunities, go to the center's website, at www.stannartsctr.org.

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