THE bicentenary of the founding of the National Gallery (NG) was marked with exhibitions in Trafalgar Square and other galleries and museums, and special events.
Exhibitions covered in the Church Times this year included the NG’s Pesellino and “The Last Caravaggio”; “History in the Making” (Compton Verney); Holbein (Buckingham Palace); “Africa and Byzantium” (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); Elisabeth Frink (Dorset Museum, Dorchester); “William Blake’s Universe” (Fitzwilliam, Cambridge); “The Glass Heart” (Two Temple Place, London); “Entangled Pasts, 1768-Now: Art, Colonialism and Change” and Angelica Kauffman (Royal Academy); “Turning Heads: Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer” (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin); “The Invention of the Renaissance” (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris); “Bruegel to Rubens: Great Flemish Drawings” (Ashmolean, Oxford); Caspar David Friedrich (Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin); “Mary and the Women She Inspired” (Sam Fogg, London); “Michelangelo: The Last Decades” (British Museum); Guercino (Waddesdon Manor); “Six Lives” (Henry VIII’s Queens) and Francis Bacon (National Portrait Gallery, London); Mabel Pryde Nicholson (The Grange, Rottingdean); Anish Kapoor (Liverpool Cathedral); “The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain” (Pallant House, Chichester); “Peggy Guggenheim” (Petersfield Museum); “Leonora Carrington” (Newlands House, Petworth); L. S. Lowry (The Maltings, Berwick-upon-Tweed); Ranjit Singh (Wallace Collection, London); “Expressionists” (Tate Modern, London); Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines (Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk); and Lancelot Ribeiro (Ben Uri Gallery, London).
Salisbury Museum reopened after refurbishment. A very early stone relief of St Thomas Becket was restored at St Lawrence’s, Godmersham. The Madonna of the Cherries by Quentin Metsys sold at Christie’s for more than £10.6 million. A 12th-century ivory Deposition (York) was bought by the V&A.
New vestments and furnishings, including a new nave altar, and a restored organ were features of Notre-Dame de Paris when the restored cathedral was reopened in December.
Earlier in the year, a new nave altar had also been consecrated in Salisbury Cathedral; Stations of the Cross had been created by Mark Cazalet for St Martin’s, Kensal Rise, London; new bells had been hung in All Saints’, Landbeach; approval was given for a new statue of Jane Austen at Winchester Cathedral; and a retrospective faculty was granted for sculptures in the grounds of St German’s Cathedral, Peel.
Contemporary art exhibitions and temporary installations, in galleries and churches included Shezad Dawood and “Our Earth” (Salisbury Cathedral); Hurvin Anderson and Nengi Omuku (Hastings Contemporary); Roger Wagner (Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham); stonemasons’ work (Worcester Cathedral); Saad Qreshi (Djanogly Art Gallery, York); Jeremy Thomas (Hereford Cathedral); “Soulscapes” (Dulwich Picture Gallery); Matthew Krishanu (Camden Arts Centre); The Longest Yarn (Southwell Minster); Pauline Caulfield (Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh); Judy Chicago (Serpentine North Gallery, London); Liz West (Chester Cathedral); Beatriz Milhazes (Tate St Ives); Es Devlin (St Mary le Strand, London); and Phoenix by Ross Ashton and Karen Monid (York Minster, to mark 40 years since the fire). The Sainsbury Centre, UEA, in Norwich, mounted an exhibition on the theme of Pilate’s question “What is Truth?”
Theatre included Thrice to Rome by Norman Doe (Temple Church); Sister Act (Dominion, London); Faith Healer by Brian Friel (Lyric, Hammersmith); Underdog: The other other Brontë by Sarah Gordon (National Theatre); Coram Boy adapted by Helen Edmundson from Jamila Gavin’s novel (Chichester Festival Theatre and Lowry Theatre, Salford); Scaffolding by Lucy Bell (Edinburgh Fringe); Bellringers by Daisy Hall (Edinburgh Fringe and Hampstead Theatre); Kim’s Convenience by Ins Choir (Riverside Studios, London); and Giant by Mark Rosenblatt (Royal Court, London). Dance included Dancing Ash Wednesday by Paul Burrows in the Edinurgh Festival of the Sacred Arts.
Films covered in the Church Times included One Life (about the Kindertransport); This Blessed Plot; Padre Pio; Poor Things; Getting It Back: The Story of Cymande; Cabrini; And Then Come the Nightjars; The Book of Clarence; Nezouh; Red Herring; Kidnapped; A House in Jerusalem; Freud’s Last Session; Unsung Hero; The Nature of Love; Agent of Happiness; Mysterious Ways; Frank Capra: Mr America; Noah’s Ark: A musical adventure; Firebrand; Someone Like You; Sound of Hope: The story of Possum Trot; Heretic; Small Things Like These; The New Boy; In Restless Dreams: The music of Paul Simon; Conclave; Power Alley; Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin; I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day; and The Divided Island.
The composer John Rutter was honoured with a knighthood. Other contemporary musicians whose work was performed included Gabriel Jackson, The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ (Merton College, Oxford), and K. Lee Scott (Birmingham Voices) (St John’s, Smith Square, London); Jonathan Dove, Odyssey (Bristol Beacon); Sir James MacMillan, Fiat Lux (Barbican Hall, London); Osvaldo Golijov, La Pasión según San Marcos (Edinburgh International Festival); Sarah Kirkland Snider, Mass for the Endangered and Ian Venables, Requiem (orch.) (Three Choirs, Worcester); Ben Parry, Wolsey Mass (Aldeburgh); Deri Joseph Lewis, Ben Rowarth, and Roderick Williams, in a John Sheppard programme (Wigmore Hall, London); and Ronald Corp, Phoenix from the Ashes (Highgate CS, London Chorus, Cadogan Hall, London).
Older repertoire heard during the year included Carissimi’s Jephte (Il Pomo d’Oro, Barbican Hall); “Our Mother” (Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater) (Stone Nest, London); Membra Jesu Nostri Patientis by Buxtehude (Temple Church, Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford); music by Salomone Rossi (Vache Baroque, Holy Trinity, Sloane Street); Handel’s Esther (Solomon’s Knot), spirituals sung by Reginald Mobley (Wigmore Hall, London); Bach’s St Matthew Passion (ed. Mendelssohn), Dvorák’s Te Deum, and Alexander Grechaninov’s Passion Week (Edinburgh International Festival); Holst’s The Cloud Messenger and Stanford’s Stabat Mater (Three Choirs, Worcester); Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass, Purcell’s The Fairy Queen (BBC Proms); Stephen Dodgson’s Te Deum (St John’s, Smith Square); and Dufay’s Mass for St Anthony of Padua (Binchois Consort, St Mary’s, Warwick).
Magnificat, Volume 4 by the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, was released by Signum Records. The Church Times Festival of Faith and Music was held in York. The Royal School of Church Music and the Royal College of Organists launched Play the Organ Year 2025.