50 cm x 50 cm, oil on primed board. Phillip Carrero.
Since his ministry began in 1947, Graham conducted more than 400 crusades in 185 countries and territories on six continents. He called them crusades, after the medieval Christian forces who conquered Jerusalem.
-“When Billy Graham first came to Australia in 1959 he had a tremendous impact upon Christian people in the community in general. His crusades were well attended everywhere he went.The crowds in Sydney filled both the Sydney Cricket Ground and the Sydney Show Ground. In Melbourne the largest crowd that had ever gathered until that time had gathered in the Melbourne Cricket Ground with 120,000 people present. They were allowed to not only pack every seat in the grandstands but also in the grass and far surpassed the previous highest attendance, which was during the Olympic games.”-
Rev. Gordon Moyes, Australian Short Stories
Sydney Anglican Brian Quinsey who became a Christian at the 1959 Crusade in Sydney:
“Prior to the 1959 Crusade, I had virtually no contact with church. My interests were rugby, surf life saving and going for a drink with the boys.”Mr Quinsey, who attends St Philip’s, Caringbah, attended the 1959 Crusade as a 20-year-old with his wife, Beverley, his parents and his younger sister.”We had to all sit separately because the seating was so full. I went out the front to make a commitment then I looked around and saw that all five of us had gone forward at the same time.””I became aware that God was there but I had never given him the place he ought to have in my life,” Mr Quinsey says.Close to 10,000 people came forward at Billy Graham’s last crusade.”
… exerpt from Brian Quinsey, Billy Graham and the last crusade.
In this small portrait I meant to do the hands expressive as I saw an advantage in showing them in a focal plane.