Art for the sake of justice and peace

There is a ‘relationship between art and religion, there’s no question; it’s all one kind of spiritual experience.’
– Bob Strobridge

Bob Strobridge CoL has designed and sewn bold, colorful banners for the Loretto Community for decades. The banners, often sharing messages of peace and justice or faith, have been carried in marches, displayed at Loretto events and assemblies and have helped to communicate widely the Community’s core values.

Bob was an artist from a young age, and completed two years of art school before enlisting in the military in the early 1950s. During four years of service in the U.S. Air Force, he was stationed in Bavaria and assigned to create posters. Afterward, he went on to finish his art degree. When first entering school, he says, he had wanted to learn art techniques, maybe work in advertising, but after the military, he was “a different person”; he had matured, and his art and reasons for creating had matured too.

Hired by Loretto-founded Webster College (now Webster University) in St. Louis, he taught under Gabriel Mary Hoare SL in the art department for several years. Gabriel Mary, Bob says, was a wonderful influence on his life. While there, he met other Loretto members who would positively impact his life. Later he would become a Loretto co-member.

When he joined the Air Force, Bob says, he was naive and unaware of ideas that would later inform his thinking and life stance, particularly concerning the military. The banners he would come to make were in contrast to what the military was about, he says. “If I were to go back through those years,” he says, “I would have been a conscientious objector.”

When asked about the inspiration for his iconic banners, he says, “Sometimes they [Loretto members] would tell me what they were protesting or doing in their public life, and so I would make a banner that tied into that message. I was usually inspired by one of the promotional ideas … working with the poor, working in Haiti … and that would spark some kind of a theme for the banners.” He says he enjoyed creating them.

Reflecting on the connection between art and spirituality, Bob shares that there is a “relationship between art and religion, there’s no question; it’s all one kind of spiritual experience.” He is adamant that art is personal, “part of your own spirit, your own expression.”

Please enjoy images of his banners, here and throughout the Loretto website.

With thanks to Rebecca Sallee Hanson, who recently spoke with Bob at his home in Iowa.

To read all of the articles in the winter 2025 issue, click here.