Robert Lentz

Robert Lentz (born 1946) is an American Franciscan friar and religious icon painter. He is particularly known for incorporating contemporary social themes into his icon work. He belongs to the Order of Friars Minor, and is currently stationed in Our Lady of Guadalupe Province.

Life Lentz was born in rural Colorado to a family of Russian descent and of a Russian Orthodox background. Lentz originally intended to enter the Franciscan Order as a young man in the 1960s, joining the formation program for St. John the Baptist Province, but left before taking his vows. Since 2021, he has been back at St. Bonaventure Friary in New York.

Lentz is gay. In New Mexico, Lentz taught William Hart McNichols, another gay Christian iconographer. He also taught iconographer Lewis Williams, OFS.

Work While he first learned to paint with egg tempera (egg yolks mixed with powdered earth colors), he eventually learned how to adapt the technique to acrylic paint. He also uses real gold, which makes his work radiate light. Lentz's icons include fourteen large images of recently canonized saints, people of various cultures and ethnicities, and modern secular political and cultural figures. His 1989 icon, Apache Christ, depicts Jesus as a Mescalero holy man and is displayed in the St. Joseph Apache Mission Church. Toby Johnson calls Lentz's icon of Harvey Milk "a national gay treasure". Addison H. Hart of Touchstone criticized Lentz's works for breaking with the traditional purpose of Christian icons, writing that they "do not serve as vehicles of the tradition, but as propaganda and individual expression". Some of his work is featured with the text of a Joan Chittister's book as listed in the bibliography below. Reproductions of his images are available through Trinity Stores.