Ceri Richards: Windows, tabernacle and reredos
Title: Windows, tabernacle and reredos
Artist: Ceri Richards (1903–1971, Welsh)
Location: Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (RC)
Date: 1966
Ceri Richards’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. In response to his work, Richards said, ‘Temperamentally I feel attuned to the movement and dynamism that lie in nature and events’.
Richards earlier figurative painting can be seen in the curvaceous forms of the glass, and treated in blues and golds the scheme is redolent of the heavens.
In a much tighter, more formal composition the oil on canvas reredos recalls shafts of sunlight moving in a space. Richard uses a paler blue and darker lines to dissect the composition and allow for a rhythmic pulse across the width of the painting, as a dynamic backdrop to the Eucharist.
The tabernacle is made with enamels in a composition where a central organic motif is flanked by the chalice and eucharistic bread.
Ceri Richards (1903–1971, Welsh) grew up in a household where music and poetry played a central role. This early experience was to influence his work throughout his career. He created bodies of work inspired by the poetry of Dylan Thomas as well as later in life a series of paintings of sunken cathedrals based upon the compositions of Debussy. His style evolved with the times, and he experimented with Surrealism, Cubism and abstraction. Richards was a prizewinner at the 1962 Venice Biennale.
Further information
Medium: Gilt metal, glass, enamel
Permanent display
See Richard’s Windows, tabernacle and reredos on the Ecclesiart map here.
Other artworks in churches by Ceri Richards: Stained glass windows (1964), Derby Cathedral; The Deposition, 1958, at St Mary’s Swansea
Other modern/contemporary works of art in Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral: Still point by Susanna Heron; Risen Christ sculpture, Arthur Dooley; floor and bronze gates, David Atkins; Christ figure (one on the High Altar, another on the altar in the Lady Chapel), Elisabeth Frink; eagle lectern, Abraham statue, ambo and stations of the cross, Sean Rice; Paschal Candle and embroidered panel, Robin McGhie; hanging panels, Sister Anthony SND and Pat Boulton; mosaic panel of Pentecost, George Mayer-Marton; Lady Chapel window, Margaret Traherne; Madonna and Child sculpture, Robert Brumby (1967); Lady Chapel altar, Sister Anthony SND; Chapel of St Joseph panels, Children’s Chapel Christ with the children sculpture and Reconciliation Chapel Christ on the Cross sculpture, Stephen Foster; Amnesty Chapel sculpture of Christ before Pilate, Peter Ball; candlesticks, Edwin Lutyens (in Crypt Treasury); stonework façade and bronze door sculptures, William Mitchell; Eight Monoliths, Ralph Seitz.
Stained glass at The Metropolitan Cathedral: For comment on the stained glass see Visit Stained Glass, which is an online showcase for some of Britain’s finest stained glass windows.