Theo Moorman: Altar frontal
Title: Altar frontal
Artist: Theo Moorman (1907–1990)
Location: St Mary the Virgin, Syde (C of E)
Date: 1960
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.
Moorman also made a chasuble and Lenten stole for Canon Andrew Bowden.
Theo (Theodora) Moorman was born in Leeds in 1907. She trained at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London and worked for department stores, for the Ministry of Aircraft Production, creating fabric for camera shutters, and for the Arts Council, before setting up her own studio in Leeds and then Gloucestershire. From the 1960s she taught and lectured both in the UK and on trips to the US, and was awarded an MBE in 1975 for services to weaving. As well as her pioneering experiments in technique and yarn type, she was influential in promoting, and embodying, the idea of the weaver as artist, both designer and maker: her 1975 book had the title Weaving as an Art Form. From the 1950s until late in her life she received commissions for churches and cathedrals in the UK and abroad.
Canon Andrew Bowden, former Canon of Gloucester Cathedral, writes:
‘I knew Theo as a member of the family. She and her brother, John, were cousins of my father-in-law, Kenneth Humpidge. John was a formidably distinguished clergyman in the Church of England. (He was the only Bishop who could speak Latin colloquially, and so the Anglican representative at the second Vatican Council). When I, a newly ordained clergyman, married Kenneth’s daughter, Sue (née Humpidge), it was natural that I should meet the Moormans. This was all the more so because Theo lived and worked at Painswick, only a few miles from our Rectory at Coates.
‘Theo was a kind and generous person, and great fun: we got on well. In due course, she made me a stole (Lenten) and a chasuble. Most of her work was restrained and understated. The delight of these vestments is not just the pattern, but the way gold threads are shot through the rich purple; and how, if you look carefully at the stole, you can see a cross standing on three hills. The purple is most unusual – a royal purple rather than a sombre Lenten mauve or violet.
‘Before I met Theo, she had already woven an altar frontal and kneelers for one of the side-chapels in Gloucester Cathedral. As you can see from the photograph, it is quietly contemplative, designed to stimulate private prayer, rather than telling one of the Christian stories. The overall colour is yellow/green, which suited the chapel as it then was.
‘However, in around 1990, it was decided to replace the windows of the chapel with new work by Tom Denny. The windows were amazing – but blue. Clearly, the yellow frontal did not go with the vibrant blue, and the Dean and Chapter decided to re-order and re-furnish the chapel. Theo’s frontal was removed and put in store.
‘By then I was a Canon of the Cathedral, and regularly asked that the frontal be re-used on one of the other altars. Eventually, the Dean approached me to say that they had no further use for the frontal, and wondered if I knew of a church which could use it. As it happened, the festal frontal at Syde was falling to pieces so, at my suggestion, the PCC offered to accept Theo’s frontal, which is now used there for much of the year.’
Further Information
Medium: Weaving
Contact Andrew Bowden for access on 01285 821067
See Moorman’s frontal on the Ecclesiart map here.
Other artworks in churches by Theo Moorman: Laudian altar frontal, Manchester Cathedral; altar throwover, All Saints, Kingston-on-Thames.