Embodying the Sacred: Religious Folk Art and Veneration of The Saints

New exhibition features Catholic reliquaries, prints of the saints, and Pennsylvania German religious art

KUTZTOWN, Pa. – Investigating a collection of Roman Catholic reliquaries and devotional objects from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic, Embodying the Sacred lands at the intersection of folk art, sacred Catholic tradition and Pennsylvania Dutch culture. The exhibition opens 4-7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 2, and runs through Summer 2027 in the M.L.E. Foundation Exhibition Gallery in the Heritage Center Library in the DeLight E. Breidegam Building at Kutztown University.

Curated by Julia Sweeney ’26, in collaboration with Patrick Donmoyer, director of the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center, the exhibition is the result of Sweeney's undergraduate research as an art history major as well as her Catholic faith and interest in sacred art. Immediately following graduation, Sweeney studied painting conservation in Amelia, Italy for a month with the Art Conservation and Restoration International Field School (ARCIFS) before returning to Kutztown University to complete this research project and install the exhibition.

Embodying the Sacred brings together art, religious tradition and Pennsylvania Dutch folk culture by examining relics and reliquaries, small prints depicting the saints, figurines and devotional items, and Europe and Pennsylvania-based German Catholic documents. These categories all work with one another to build a bigger conversation about Roman Catholicism in historic Pennsylvania, iconographical imagery of the saints and Catholic tradition.

Admission to the exhibition is free to the public. Visitors can explore the exhibition during regular gallery hours, 10 a.m. to noon, and 1-4 p.m. Monday through Friday, M.L.E. Exhibition Gallery in the DeLight E. Breidegam Building, 15155 Kutztown Road, Kutztown, PA, 19530. For more information visit the Heritage Center website.