Ecclesiart is an online project that raises awareness of significant works of modern and contemporary art since 1920 in UK churches and cathedrals.
The selected works represent the diversity of high quality church commissions and reflect developments in artistic practice and ecclesiastical art and design. You can explore the collection using the tiles below or by using the Ecclesiart map.
We seek to encourage increased responsibility towards works which may be under-appreciated or at risk and hope that this selection of works provides inspiring and challenging examples of art in churches useful to any parish or individual wishing to commission a new work.
We welcome nominations of new works to be added to Ecclesiart. Please email us with a short text about why you think a work of art should be included with a short theological reflection on the work and its context (no longer than 150 words) and if possible please include images. Please note that we do not accept nominations from artists for their own work.
All permanent works shortlisted for the Award for Art in a Religious Context are added to Ecclesiart. For all other nominations, the Director and trustees of Art and Christianity reserve the right to select works which they determine as meeting the criteria of aptness to context, artistic and technical merit and appropriate theological meaning.
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Theo Moorman: Altar frontal
Theo Moorman’s woven frontal was made initially for a side chapel at Gloucester Cathedral but was relocated to the small Norman church of St Mary, Syde, when the Thomas Denny windows were installed. Despite not being made for the church, the frontal suits its new home. The abstract composition suggests a ray of light shining out from the centre of the altar, infusing a landscape of blues with a soft yellow-gold light. The palette seems to gesture towards the church’s dedication, and echoes the Virgin’s robes in the modern window above, as if developing the symmetrical folds and strictly alternating green-gold pattern of the glass, as well as the simple floor paving, in its own, looser and yet rigorous way. The arrangement of colours and deviations from complete symmetry appear to follow a deeper logic that the weaving, as a work not just of craftsmanship but of art, makes visible.
Pauline Caulfield: Kintbury cope
Pauline Caulfield has produced vestments and altar frontals throughout her career.
In 2018 she had an exhibition of Ecclesiastical textiles at St Augustine’s Church, Hammersmith, London.
Maggi Hambling: The Winchester Tapestries
Created by Maggi Hambling for the High Altar at Winchester Cathedral, these tapestries, the artist’s first, were dedicated on 7 July 2013. Maggi Hambling collaborated with Ateliers Pinton – a French tapestry workshop in the Aubusson region which has worked with artists such as Picasso, Miro, Leger and Sutherland (for Coventry).
Susan Riley: Reredos and High Altar frontal
The main features of the sanctuary are the Reredos and the stained glass windows... The Seven Angels Reredos was designed and worked by Susan Riley. Commissioned in 2000 it took two years to complete and was inspired by the angels of the seven churches to whom letters are addressed in the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation.
Beryl Dean: Chasuble and stole (festal set)
All Saints Newland, known as the Cathedral of the Forest (of Dean), is also in the Wye Valley. Thus Beryl Dean used imagery of foliage, fish, water weed and snails for this Festal Set. The detail and design are both meticulous, charming and compliment the architecture of this rural church.
