John August Swanson was born in 1938 in Los Angeles, California to a Mexican mother and a Swedish father. Swanson works primarily in the medium of serigraphy, in addition to his expertise in oil, watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, lithography and etching. John Swanson studied with Corita Kent at Immaculate Heart College and he is the recipient of a Doctor of Human Letters degree honoris causa from California Lutheran University. He is best known for his biblical imagery, combining the flat stylized look of iconography with the bright pallette and strong narrative sense of his multi ethnic background. Many of his pieces have proven popular among collectors of religious artwork around the world and his work is represented in the permanent collections of many museums, including the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Air and Space Museum. He is also included in the print collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate Gallery and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. John Swanson’s work is one of relatively few works by contemporary artists to be selected for the Vatican Museums’ Collection of Religious Modern Art.