Our family, from Philadelphia, have always enjoyed the paintings of Warner Sallman. So, when this experience happened to me in 2000 I was thrilled: While attending a men’s Bible study in Sarasota, Florida, a man approached me after the study ended. He handed the famous Head of Christ pocket-sized photo to me and said, “My father painted this.” I was speechless, as I had met the son of Warner, Jim Sallman. This was a special moment in time for me.

The Lutheran church I grew up has the painting Christ at Heart’s Door in a prominent place in the foyer of their fellowship hall. It’s been there for about 50 years. I remember when I was a child the minister explaining the story and pointing out that there was no doorknob, since Jesus would not come in to your heart uninvited. As an artist and Christian today I will always remember this painting. I came to have a personal relationship with the Lord in college, and I can attribute it to the early experiences, like this painting, that planted seeds in my life.

I have wonderful memories of the very large original painting Head of Christ, as it was prominently hung in the sanctuary (above where the choir was seated) of the church that my family attended when I was growing up in the 1950’s and ’60s (Edgewater Covenant, at the corner of Bryn Mawr & Glenwood Avenues in Chicago, in what was at that time a Swedish neighborhood). It was so nice to be able to gaze up at that beautiful painting during the Sunday services!

Warner Sallman was a member of our congregation, and as I recall, every Easter he would make a beautiful chalk drawing in front of the congregation, surrounded by potted Easter lilies, while we listened to a lovely presentation of spiritual music.

One year when I was little, Mr. Sallman personally presented each of us children in the Sunday School of our church with a beautifully framed copy of one of his paintings. I was very honored to shake his hand when he gave me the painting, which I still have and treasure to this day.

As long as I can remember (I am now 43), the Head of Christ has always been above of the bed of my grandmother (98 years old). Her mother bought it for a dollar in a department store. When I Iook at the picture, it seems so real and lifelike. For some reason, it has always given me comfort when I look at it. My grandmother is in her last days on this earth, and I will choose to think of her with that picture over her head as I remember her with comfort.

I received one of Warner Sallman’s paintings after my grandmother, Edith Viste (Slater), 93, passed away in April of 2009.

The 1942 painting of Christ at Heart’s Door now hangs in my home. I did not know anything about the painting prior to looking online and it had been hanging on my wall for seven months before I saw the outline of the heart.

The painting reminded me of these posters we had as kids growing up in the late 1980s to early 90s that you would stare at for several minutes before you would see a hidden image, made famous in the movie Mallrats.

After reading more online about the painting, it intrigues me even more about the darkness behind the grill in the door and the the thistles in which Christ is surrounded; the outline of the heart really is genius painting.

Sallman really thought through how to paint this without making everything so obvious. There is so much going on in the painting, much like one’s personal relationship with Jesus Christ everyday.

Warner Sallman’s painting, Head of Christ, will make its first-ever appearance on a postage stamp next year. The stamp will be released March 24, 2010, in the Åland Islands, an autonomous province of Finland situated between that country and Sweden. Sallman’s father, Elias Sallman, emigrated to the United States from the Åland Islands in 1886. Read more.

With the race for best-known artist of the century nearly over, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol are running neck and neck, with Andrew Wyeth a respectable third. But when the official tally is made, all three are likely to be buried in a landslide vote for Warner E. Sallman. Read more.

As best as I can recall, it was in the late 1940s or possibly very early 1950s, I had the life-changing experience of witnessing Warner recreate the Head of Christ in chalk at a church camp near Mankato, Minn. I was just a young boy when he came to visit our camp for the Covenant Church on Lake Crystal. My father, Rev. Paul J. Peterson, was pastor of this church and had invited or otherwise arranged for Warner to give his testimony and recreate the work. It’s a memory that is very vivid, one that I have cherished and kept in my heart for these many years. I know the chalk work was framed and hung in the vestibule of the church through my father’s era, which ended in December 1953 when he was called to another church. I would bet they still have it, as it was certainly a treasure and so meaningful to all who saw it.

I grew up in Anderson, Ind., and was very familiar with the picture of the Sallman Christ which I saw many times on the small cards passed out at church for special events and funerals. I never knew of the artist, Warner Sallman, until a year ago when our paths crossed again.

I now live north of Chicago in a small town. In my church’s sanctuary is a picture of Christ that seemed so familiar. Last year one of our members did some research on the artist, Warner Sallman. When I did more research on the artist myself, everything fell into place and my memories of childhood became connected with my current life.

Our chalk rendition of the Christ head was completed by Mr. Sallman in the 1960s and has hung in our sanctuary since then. He completed it during one of his “chalk talks.” We have very few members still alive who remember that day.

Since making this connection I have purchased more of the Christ head cards and am reading Mr Sallman’s biography. I … have encouraged interest not only in the picture but in the artist himself, who I find to have been very talented and such a wonderful representative of Christianity.

This picture [Head of Christ] was in my parents home for as long as I can remember. I have Christmas photos when I was under 10 with this in the background. I am now 69 years old. The current house my father still lives in was built in 1951, and it has hung in the living room since; he is now 94. It holds so many memories for me and recently my father passed it on to me. I will cherish it always.