Mary’s Baby (1963) (Remastered)

A fierce, primal nativity: the hooded mother cradles a child whose face is both infant and skull, surrounded by a monstrous retinue of elongated guardians—skeletal dragons, a grinning monkey, grotesque watchers emerging from cracked earth. This is not gentle divinity; it is motherhood as shield in a poisoned world, innocence born into peril, protectors as terrifying as the threats they ward off. Original work completed in 1963 in black and white by Albert Zeno (Albany Zeno Sr., 1926–1999), remastered and preserved in 2025 by his son, Albany Zeno Jr., using manual and AI-assisted techniques that honor the artist's intent and originality, symbolism, and unflinching tenderness amid terror. Part of the Zeno Reborn: Genesis collection — the first public digital resurrection of a lost Chicago surrealist whose paintings confronted nuclear anxiety, environmental collapse, and the parallel exploitation of people and nature, as embodied in the enduring 1972 Hyde Park "Alewives and Mercury Fish" mural. This piece stands as a fierce meditation on birth, mortality, and defiant guardianship.