John Hayward: Interior murals
The murals at St Michael and All Angels were among the first works to be created by Hayward after he established himself as a freelance artist in 1961. Their blues, greens and golds were to become characteristic of Hayward’s stained glass for which he became famous in later years. The murals use the marouflage technique: the images are painted in the artist’s studio and then cut out and glued to the wall of the church. Each was designed specifically for the space it was to occupy. When they were installed in 1962, they were said to be the largest modern set of murals anywhere in the world.
Sophie Hacker: Revealing Glory, Renewing Hope
The design is inspired by a 17th century map of the town and includes significant historical landmarks such as neolithic earthworks and an early medieval castle. The main road clearly marked on the map becomes a horizon line in the window. In the ‘sky’ above, a golden shape glows with light where the ruins of Ludgershall Castle now stand.
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.
Tim Stead: Rood screen and furniture
In 1989 Stead was commissioned by the North Sea Oil Industries to design and make the fittings for a new Memorial Chapel in the Kirk of St Nicholas, Aberdeen: 40 chairs, a lectern, communion table, a minister's chair, a screen.
Antony Gormley: Transport
‘Antony Gormley’s Transport in Canterbury is a large and striking human figure, created from iron nails formerly in the roof of the Cathedral. It is suspended three metres above the floor of the site of the first burial place of St Thomas Becket in the Eastern Crypt. [...] This is a beautifully made and very clever piece of work which impresses by its technical accomplishment’ (The Very Revd Nicholas Frayling, Chair of the judging panel for the ACE Award for Art in a Religious Context, 2011).
Thomas Denny: Transfiguration Window
This work 'was created in honour of Bishop Michael Ramsey, and intended to reflect his theological interests, in particular his fascination with the Transfiguration of Christ... The window is in the South Quire Aisle and is 16x16m in size. This window is technically very assured and of high quality. Its location means that it can only really be seen at close quarters, and it is indeed very detailed in its depiction of biblical images.’
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).
Duncan Grant: The Victory of Calvary (or Crucifixion)
During WWII, Bishop Bell commissioned Bloomsbury group artists, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Quentin Bell to cover much of the church in extensive murals. Duncan Grant's The Victory of Calvary shows Christ in victory on the Cross. Jesus is not obviously suffering; here he is the victor, standing on a platform rather than hanging down. Grant originally depicted Christ unclothed, a decision which drew criticism from the Church, so he repainted a cloth around his waist.
Leonard McComb: The Bartlett Mosaics
One of many ovoid domes in the Cathedral which has been given imagery and decoration using mosaic. The works depict St Francis preaching to the birds and St Anthony to the fishes.
John Piper: The Road to Emmaus
A semi-figurative mosaic on the East wall, with an unusual black background. John Piper’s (1903-1992, British) paintings mainly focus on the British landscape and churches.
Antonia Hockton: The River of Life reredos
Antonia Hockton's River of Life reredos at St Georges, Great Bromley, Essex adds greatly to the way the altar in the side chapel works. This was just what a parish church should be doing: engaging a local artist who explores the context and makee something new that flows into the altar and on to those who worship there, and although it may have seemed a lot to the parish, it was achieved relatively inexpensively.
Charles Jagger: The Kelham Rood (Christ, The Blessed Virgin Mary and St John)
Originally sculpted for the chapel at Kelham Hall in Nottinghamshire, and commissioned by the Society of the Sacred Mission, the Rood now sits in the south nave of St John the Divine where the SSM was founded in the 19th Century.
Stephen Owen: Communion table and lectern
Winner of the A+C Art Award for a permanent commission, Stephen Owen’s carved communion table and lectern are powerful symbolic pieces of liturgical furniture.
Chris Gollon: Stations of the Cross
In 2000 Gollon was commissioned to paint 14 Stations of the Cross for the Church of St John on Bethnal Green, a grade one listed building designed by Sir John Soane. This was one of the largest commissions by the Church of England in recent times. Although previously Gollon was not best known for his religious work, the Rector Alan Green explained, "The church of St John on Bethnal Green has had a long-standing involvement with people on the fringes of our society, the sort of people who often figure in Chris' paintings.
Ceri Richards: Windows, tabernacle and reredos
Ceri Richard's reredos and stained glass were conceived as a single triptych, abstractly flowing one into another. The tabernacle has more obvious imagery: the heavens, the chalice and the cross.
Eduardo Paolozzi: Stained glass windows
This window was designed by Eduardo Paolozzi, who was born in Leith, to replace the plain glass rose and lancets in the Resurrection Chapel. Given in memory of Mary Carmichael, a much loved member of the congregation, it was dedicated in October 2002. When the sun floods through the window, it transforms the plain stone and woodwork into a kaleidoscope of colour.
Mo Enright: The Easter Story
The paintings integrate theologically with existing features, and express the fullness of the Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter and Pentecost story. The sheer size of the work assists in seeing and understanding the size of the work of Christ, with darker lower sections focusing attention on the ‘darkness’ endured in the Passion, and the brightness of the upper sections lifting the eyes to resurrection, light, life, empowering and hope.
Laurence Edwards: Beast of Burden
Behind the altar table in Holy Trinity Church in Blythburgh, Suffolk, is a powerful altarpiece by Laurence Edwards. Cast in bronze from the mud, wood and hogweed that can be found all around the Suffolk locality, Edward’s sculpture brings the precise beauty of the outside marsh into the church in a way that combines imagination, emotion and spirit.
Alison Watt: Still
“ … There is a sense of latency and loss in the painting; but it also establishes a feeling of hope, a sense that, against all hope, hope yet remains.
"It also speaks a quite personal word to me, and many like me in today’s world, for whom the old ways of speaking about God have lost their power and immediacy. Still suggests an absence that is strangely like a presence.”
Alice Sielle: Stations of the Cross
Small scale linocuts sympathetically framed and placed at regular intervals around the church.
Alice Sielle (b. 1950, British) is predominantly an abstract painter with a wide range of influences from Barnet Newman to Piero della Francesca.
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.