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"And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus."

-Luke 23: 26

In the Fifth Station, Simon of Cyrene takes the cross from Jesus and carries it because the cross was heavy. It is a poignant moment in an epic journey.

That is what Bill Doan, of Fort Dodge, saw in the wood frame before him: a religious painting amidst the jumble of items being sold Monday by Holy Trinity Parish.

Designed to imitate fresco and therefore intentionally distressed, the Fifth Station wasn't painted in the style for which the artist had become famous - and yet Doan recognized the hand.

"I thought it might be," he said Wednesday, "and then I looked at the bottom and his signature - which was an inch high."

Tom Savage.

Savage, who was born in 1908 on a farm outside Fort Dodge, studied with a far more famous Iowan - the Regionalist artist Grant Wood. At the Stone City Art Colony, where Wood taught from 1932 to 1933, Savage's talent was recognized and cultivated.

He became a Public Works of Art Project painter, with Wood as its director, and together with other artists they created, among other things, the mural that still adorns the Parks Library at Iowa State University. That work, painted from 1935 to 1943, according to "76 Years of Collecting, Blanden Memorial Art Museum," was financed by the Federal Works Progress Administration.

But Savage is best known for his 1933 painting, "Butchering on the Farm," which today is part of the Blanden's permanent collection. It depicts, in an almost convivial coldness, the disemboweling of a hog in the wintertime.

Jim Savage, of Prairie Village, Kan., said he was a teenager when his father painted the Fifth Station sometime around 1960.

"I would have been in sixth to eighth grade," he said. "I distinctly remember when he did it because it was all these paintings downstairs."

Savage said his father did most paintings for his own enjoyment, and their content wasn't limited in scope.

"Right on the heels of doing the Stations of the Cross," said Savage, "he did a nude for a bar in downtown Fort Dodge."

Doan was young when he met Tom Savage at the Blanden, perhaps 50 years ago.

"He befriended me when I was a teenager back during the summer art festivals," Doan said. "Tom was a lovely person, a wonderful individual and a talented artist."

The Fifth Station, at 24 inches wide by 32 inches high, is rendered in mixed media on pressboard, Doan said. It was purposely abraded to age it. Doan assumes its wooden frame, mounted with a finial of the cross, was made by Savage. Savage commonly made his own frames, he said.

Doan paid $3 for the Fifth Station.

"I think the people at the auction thought that the picture was damaged," he said. "This was done by the artist himself to make it look like a fresco on plaster. But I didn't know it was part of an entire set."

The Stations of the Cross depict the Passion of Christ. Perhaps the most famous contemporary documentation of them is actor-director Mel Gibson's 2004 film, "The Passion of Christ," whose structure is based on the stations.

There are 14 Stations.

Savage apparently painted all of them.

He created them as a favor for his friend, the Rev. Edmond J. Hayes, an Irish priest who was assigned to St. John Catholic Church, in Vincent, and St. Joseph Catholic Church, in Duncombe, from 1931 to 1966, according to Teresa Harris, a volunteer with Holy Trinity Parish.

Both of those churches have since been closed, St. Joseph's just last year, said Harris.

Savage's Stations of the Cross hung in St. Joseph's Parish Hall until 1972, when they were taken down, according to a former parishioner, Pat Powers, of Duncombe.

Jim Savage said that, although his father was a talented artist, reality prevailed in his life. His predominant career, therefore, was as a sign painter for Mid-Continent Bottlers Inc., in Fort Dodge.

"He was involved with the bottling industry for a long time. I never had a conversation with him about if you had your life to do over," the son said. "He had some professional ability - again, this was during the Depression - but he gravitated toward making a living."

Tom Savage died in 1987 in Fort Dodge.

What happened to the other 13 Stations?

The rumor is that they were damaged by water while in storage and eventually thrown away.

Kathy Kapustka, the center coordinator for Holy Trinity Parish who was in charge of clearing out the Duncombe church in preparation for auction, confirmed that she did not find the other Stations in the process.

Tom Savage's nephew, Ed O'Leary, of Fort Dodge, had long assumed that all of the Stations had been lost.

Until now.

"I think what Bill has," said O'Leary, "is the last of the Stations of the Cross."

Ironically, the nude has also disappeared.

Contact Jane Curtis at (515) 573-2141 or editor@messengernews.net