Steve Mumford caught my attention as a combat painter during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars beginning in 2003. He was following in a rich tradition of artists risking their lives to depict the drama of war. (I wrote a whole chapter of my Ph.D. dissertation about his work.) Since then, Mumford has been a regular contributor to Harper’s magazine, traveling to cover a range of stories in “places where human emotions really come into play.” He has depicted the BP oil spill in Louisiana, the prison at Guantanamo Bay, rallies for then-candidate Donald Trump, the lives of wounded combat veterans and plenty more.

In May, 2022, I visited his studio in lower Manhattan where we talked about his two current lines of artistic exploration. I expected to see the first such body of work, his latest on-scene ink-and-watercolor drawings depicting the COVID response in New York, protests for racial justice in Portland, and the like. I didn’t expect to see studies for a series borne from his practice as a Catholic. It led to a great discussion. “I don’t think that you can go back to any kind of pure faith if you’ve grown up in a modernist atmosphere,” he said, “But I think it is possible to go to church and get some very powerful experience from it, even if you don’t subscribe to the whole mythology.”

Mumford’s work can be found at Postmasters Gallery, where he has been represented for many years. (https://privateviews.artlogic.net/2/6e35b37f6c6080de555602/)