page_title: John Piper (artist)
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: John Piper (artist) / Biography / Later life
caption_attribution_description: English: John Piper tapestry, Chichester Cathedral The design by Piper was woven in France in 1966. The central theme is the Holy Trinity; on the side panels appear the "four beasts full of eyes before and behind" (Rev. 4:6) traditionally regarded as symbolising the four evangelists.
context_page_description: John Egerton Christmas Piper CH was an English painter, printmaker and designer of stained-glass windows and both opera and theatre sets. His work often focused on the British landscape, especially churches and monuments, and included tapestry designs, book jackets, screen-prints, photography, fabrics and ceramics. He was educated at Epsom College and trained at the Richmond School of Art followed by the Royal College of Art in London. He turned from abstraction early in his career, concentrating on a more naturalistic but distinctive approach, but often worked in several different styles throughout his career.
  Piper was an official war artist in World War II and his wartime depictions of bomb-damaged churches and landmarks, most notably those of Coventry Cathedral, made Piper a household name and led to his work being acquired by several public collections. Piper collaborated with many others, including the poets John Betjeman and Geoffrey Grigson on the Shell Guides, the potter Geoffrey Eastop and the artist Ben Nicholson. In his later years he produced many limited-edition prints.
context_section_description: From 1950 Piper began working in stained glass in partnership with Patrick Reyntiens, whom he had met through John Betjeman. Their first completed commission, for the chapel at Oundle School, led to Basil Spence commissioning them to design the stained-glass baptistry window for the new Coventry Cathedral. They produced an abstract design that occupies the full height of the bowed baptistry, and comprises 195 panes, ranging from white to deep blue. Piper and Reyntiens went on to design large stained-glass windows for the chapel of Robinson College, Cambridge, and The Land Is Bright, a large window in the Washington National Cathedral, as well as windows for many smaller churches. Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, completed in 1967, features an innovative stained glass lantern by Piper and Reyntiens. The lantern panels were cemented together with epoxy resin within thin concrete ribs, a technique invented for the job. Side chapels were also framed in glass to their designs.
  In 1966 Walter Hussey, the Dean of Chichester Cathedral, commissioned Piper to produce a tapestry to enliven the dark area around the high altar of the cathedral. Piper had designed the cope presented to Hussey when he left his previous post in 1955; and for Chichester he produced a very brightly coloured tapestry with an abstract design of the Holy Trinity flanked by the Elements and by the Evangelists. Although the tapestry received a mixed, mostly negative, reaction from the public, Piper was commissioned to create a set of clerical vestments to complement the work in 1967. Piper also created tapestries for Hereford Cathedral and Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff.
  Piper made working visits to south Wales in both 1936 and 1939, and from 1943 to 1951, he made an annual painting trip to Snowdonia. He did not paint in the Welsh mountains after 1951 but did visit, and painted in Aberaeron in 1954. Piper's Snowdonia paintings and drawings were exhibited in New York in September 1947 and in May 1950, on both occasions at Curt Valentin's Buchholz Gallery. The former show was Piper's first large solo show in the United States.
  For the Festival of Britain in 1951, the Arts Council of Great Britain commissioned Piper to create a large mural, The Englishman's Home, which consisted of 42 plywood panels and depicted dwellings ranging from cottages to castles. The mural was displayed in a large open porch on the South Bank festival site. Later in the 1950s, Piper produced pioneering designs for furnishing fabrics for Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd and David Whitehead Ltd, as part of a movement to bring art and design to the masses. He also designed a number of dust jackets for books, frequently depicting both natural and architectural forms, often in a state of decay, within theatrical framing.
  He also designed windows for Eton College Chapel, which were executed by Reyntiens.
  Piper continued to write extensively on modern art in books and articles. From 1946 until 1954, Piper served as a trustee of the Tate Gallery. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s he frequently visited Pembrokeshire to paint. He was a theatre set designer, including for the Kenton Theatre in Henley-on-Thames. He designed many of the premiere productions of Benjamin Britten's operas at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Royal Opera House, La Fenice and the Aldeburgh Festival, as well as for some of the operas of Alun Hoddinott. Piper also designed firework displays, most notably for the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 1977.
  John Piper died at his home at Fawley Bottom, Buckinghamshire, where he had lived for most of his life with his wife Myfanwy. His children are Clarissa Lewis, the painter Edward Piper (deceased), Susannah Brooks and Sebastian Piper; his grandchildren include painter Luke Piper and sculptor Henry Piper.
caption: Tapestry for Chichester Cathedral
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