Image: Copro Gallery, Santa Monica
Copro Gallery has launched a Kickstarter campaign to support Chet Zar’s ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’, which the Santa Monica gallery describes as the artist’s largest painting to date. The campaign began on September 1, 2026, with the completed work scheduled to receive its first public viewing when the related show opens at Copro Gallery on October 10.
The project is the gallery’s first Kickstarter campaign. Its stated purpose is to help Zar finish the large-scale painting before the October opening. The campaign page identifies Santa Monica as the project’s location and describes the work as being created for an October show at Copro Gallery.
Supporters are being offered a range of rewards connected to the project. These include original art, a show catalogue and wood giclées. One reward also offers a supporter the opportunity to have their face painted as one of the demons appearing in Zar’s painting, according to the gallery’s campaign announcement.
The gallery said that contributors would be invited to an early VIP party. The announcement does not provide a fundraising target, campaign deadline or dimensions for Zar’s painting, and the available project information does not specify how many works will be included in the October show.
The subject places Zar’s commission within a long history of religious painting focused on Saint Anthony. Materials distributed with the campaign include an image and catalogue information for Matthias Grünewald’s ‘The Temptation of St Anthony’, dated to around 1515. Grünewald’s painting is identified as an oil-on-wood panel measuring 265 by 141 centimetres, held at the Musée d’Unterlinden in Colmar. It forms the right wing of the third view of the Isenheim Altarpiece.
The campaign materials also show Zar working at the easel and include an early version of ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony’, along with a mock-up of the catalogue offered among the rewards. The announcement presents the October 10 opening as the first opportunity to see the completed painting in person at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica.
