By Robert McAlister

The first impression you get when meeting Fr. Henry Setter is the force of his personality. He is a man who cares about the world and meets it head on. “Nobody ever guesses that I’m an artist. A football player maybe, probably a guard for the Chicago Bears, but never an artist. Look at these hands.”

Certainly the hands don’t look like those of an artist; the fingers are short, the palms calloused, the knuckles large. They might be the hands of a blacksmith or a machinist.

Fr. Setter’s work has been shown at recent exhibits in Athens where he is a student at the University of Georgia. A one-man-show at the Catholic Center drew an audience of almost 200. The general theme of the exhibit was evolution.

Fr. Setter has taken much of his inspiration from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard was a Jesuit priest and world-renowned paleontologist. He developed a theory of evolution radically different from that of Darwin. Evolution was not random. Evolution was growth and a striving for perfection that was represented by the Omega point –the ultimate end. Teilhard argued that his Omega point was Christ.

Fr. Setter entered the Marianist order in 1949. A native of Cincinnati, he taught for five years, was ordained and went on to study in Europe. Along the way he continued his interest in art. “I love to draw. Just to put pen to paper and let the forms develop. I’ve even developed a rather careful handwriting.”

The sculpture has taken a little longer. Drawing is two-dimensional; sculpture adds the dimension of depth. At first he used drawings as blueprints for the sculpture. He sensed that the pieces lacked vitality so he began to create three dimensional forms in the same way as he did drawings. He worked directly with plaster or wax without models and without a definite form in mind. Eventually he achieved mastery of this form, as he had with drawing.

Professor William J. Thompson, a highly acclaimed sculptor in his own right, had this to say; “Henry Setter is a mature thoughtful artist. He is sensitive to the times we live in and has a great capacity for registering the deeper feelings of our generation.”

Father Setter has completed several major works; a natural stone mosaic 50 feet high behind the altar of repose at the Marianist Order seminary in Freiburg, Switzerland, a six-and-one-half-ton stone altar at the Ecumenical Center in Dayton, Ohio, a stone statue of Pope John and a tabernacle in the Marianist provincialate chapel.

With the completion of his two year course of study at the University of Georgia, he will receive a Master of Fine Arts degree. Fr. Setter is moving to Boston in August. There he will be director of studies for the Marianists studying theology at Boston Theological Institute. He will also be spiritual advisor for the students.

He is planning to spend as much time as possible working at sculpture and drawing.