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.

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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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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 5 Rey Conquer Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 5 Rey Conquer

Hans Feibusch: Ascension

Hans Feibusch, a Jewish artist who fled Germany in 1933, became the most prolific muralist in the history of the Church of England. Through his relationship with George Bell, the Bishop of Chicester, he created murals for many churches, often those built or restored after the war. His murals combine the palettes, techniques and forms of European Modernism – Expressionism and Cubism – with those of the early Italian Renaissance, while speaking to the spiritual concerns of the post-war church. Feibusch saw his work as essentially collaborative – not only with his assistant, Phyllis Bray, and the architect, but also with the worshipping congregation. ‘A work of art in church is there to help the worshipper, to lead their thoughts from the tumultuous outer world towards an inner spiritual one.’ (Hans Feibusch, ‘Mural Painting in Churches’, Studio, 1954)

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 4 Rey Conquer Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 4 Rey Conquer

Craigie Aitchison: Calvary

Craigie Aitchison’s four Calvary panels for Truro Cathedral sit behind the altar in St Margaret’s Chapel. Bands of luminous colour – magenta, purple, emerald green – form the background, a simplified landscape. The first three panels are composed symmetrically. The two thieves slump on their crosses, one arm draped elastically over the cross-piece, each turned towards the central figure of Christ, who is depicted with his head raised and features cautious but peaceful. A ray of yellow light splits the deep pink sky in which a single star shines, while the Holy Spirit descends as two white lines. There are no human witnesses to the scene; instead, a black dog gazes up at Christ and a blue bird perches next to his shortened arm. The fourth panel shows, in the place of the Cross, a white, stunted tree, its single branch in bud. It is illuminated by a bright white orb – the moon, or perhaps the star from the second panel, grown larger . Aitchison has said of his repeated depictions of the Passion, ‘it is a horrific story, and I think more worth trying to say something about than anything that’s happened since.’ Here the horror is transformed into a strange and tentative hope.

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 4 Rey Conquer Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 4 Rey Conquer

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.

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 4 Rey Conquer Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 4 Rey Conquer

Victoria Rance: Comforter

St Laurence Church, Catford, is a notable octagonal church built by Ralph Covell in 1968. The east wall behind the freestanding altar presented a problem that for several decades remained unsolved. A plain cloth screen covering the organ pipes formed an unsatisfactory backdrop to the sanctuary, despite an illuminated dalles de verre cross in its centre. The space ‘was an empty vacuum – not even a positive absence – a negative space demanding to be filled’, as Charles Pickstone, the current vicar, has put it. Victoria Rance, an artist based in nearby Deptford, was commissioned in 2008 to produce a work that would solve this problem, with enough visual force to fill and unite the space without distracting from the altar and sanctuary.

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock

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.

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock

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.’

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock

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).

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock

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.

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock

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.

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock

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.

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock

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.

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Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock Ecclesiart, Ecclesiart Batch 3 Stuart Hillcock

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.

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