Susan Dorothea White Bibliography

TRANSLATION:

The First Supper is the title of the large-format painting by Australian artist Susan D. White (60), which, after a long journey, has found a new home in the foyer of Augustana University in Neuendettelsau. Twelve women from every continent are seated at the supper table; in their midst, as the central figure and the thirteenth person, is an Aboriginal Australian woman. The composition, central perspective and arrangement of the figures clearly refer to Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Last Supper of Jesus.

The painting was created to mark the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the first European settlers — the beginning of the 200-year history of suffering of the Aboriginal people, the Indigenous people of Australia, whose flag adorns the T-shirt of the female Jesus figure.

Women of different racial backgrounds, different religions and different ages sit at the large table, which is laid with foods and fruits typical of their respective countries. Their social status can be recognised by their feet: they wear many different kinds of shoes, or go barefoot. Judas, with sneakers, jeans, long blond hair and a can of Coca-Cola in front of her on the table, is a symbol of Western consumer society, which has betrayed true Christian values. It is an image that invites wide-ranging discussion.

Young female and male students in particular will have this painting before their eyes in the foyer of Augustana, the theological college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. The painting calls into question the patriarchal imprint of our culture. Through Bavaria’s first lectureship in Theological Women’s Studies and Feminist Theology, the work will also receive appropriate scholarly engagement and contextual treatment.

The owner of the painting, which was created in 1988 over the course of a year, is Munich professor Ulla Mitzdorf, Women’s Representative of the University of Munich, who repeatedly campaigned for the artwork to be presented appropriately. At a small ceremony on the Day of Repentance and Prayer, she handed the work over to Augustana University as a permanent loan.

The artist herself, Susan D. White, was initially disappointed when she heard that her First Supper — which various institutions around the world would gladly use as a logo — was now to hang in a little town somewhat “off the beaten track.” But after she had “travelled” to Augustana on the internet, she felt relieved, because “Feminist Theology is taught in Neuendettelsau and the town even has a railway station.”

A man, however, was also allowed to make a small contribution to the painting’s finding its way to Neuendettelsau: Helmut Ruhwandl, the former Munich city dean and now lecturer in Social Ethics at Augustana, personally chauffeured the painting to Neuendettelsau.