Harry Stammers: Majestas
Title: Majestas
Artist: Harry Stammers (1902–1969, British)
Location: Chapel at St Padarn’s, formerly St Michael’s College, Llandaff (Church in Wales)
Date: 1959
The original chapel of St Michael’s theological college was destroyed by bombing, and the architect George Pace was commissioned to design a replacement. The result draws on the new ideas in liturgical theory of the time, as well as examples from the continent, such as Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, or Rudolf Schwarz’s Corpus Christi in Aachen, echoed in the plainness of the Chapel’s interior, its assortment of south windows and slightly curved walls. The monochrome scheme of the white walls and dark furniture is interrupted only by the striking Majestas above the free-standing altar, designed by the stained glass artist Harry Stammers working closely with Pace. In it, Christ in Majesty is seated in a mandorla, surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists, against a background of crisscrossed metal strips and wire. Abstracted geometric beasts in gilded metal plates and stained glass look to the golden Christ, who gazes ahead over the heads of the congregation. While the composition is traditional, the construction, for which Stammers devised new methods of working with glass and metal, is innovative and boldly modern. As with Jacob Epstein’s Majesty at Llandaff and Graham Sutherland’s tapestry at Coventry, the risen Christ replaces the Crucifixion as a point of focus in a church rebuilt after the war.
Harry Stammers (1902–1969, British) joined the stained glass firm Powell & Sons at 16, moving to Exeter to join Wippell’s in 1943 then establishing his own studio. In 1947, the Dean of York, Eric Milner-White, enticed Stammers to move to the city as part of his plan to make York the centre of a revival of stained glass production and conservation. In York, Stammers worked with the architect George Pace, a fellow protégé of Milner-White’s, to create windows for St Martin le Grand in Coney Street and a number of other churches. As well as windows in churches across the UK, Stammers also contributed a window depicting St George and the Dragon to the Anglican Cathedral in Seoul, South Korea.
Further Information
Medium: glass, sheet copper, copper and aluminium strips, lead cames and wood
Permanent display
See Harry Stammers’ Majestas on the Ecclesiart map here.
Commissioner: College Council of St Michael’s Theological College
Other artworks in churches by Harry Stammers: Windows for St Olave’s Church, York; St Martin le Grand in Coney Street, York; St Mary’s Church, Scarborough; St Mark’s Church, Sheffield; Church of the Holy Trinity, Christchurch, Newport; Church of St Matthew, Buckley, Flintshire; St Anselm’s Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral; Airmen’s Memorial windows, Lincoln Cathedral.