THE Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a collection of hundreds of John Piper’s works. Among them are the seven panels that constitute the final cartoon for the Chichester Trinity tapestry (E.1619.1625 — 1984).
When I heard last autumn that an exhibition was planned to mark its 60th anniversary, I hoped to see this cartoon again, which, because of its size, is rarely on view (Arts, 8 March 2002). It measures more than four and a half metres high, and, together, the panels are nearly seven and a half metres wide. Sadly, neither it nor any of the trial pieces (Pallant House, Chichester) are shown here.
A number of story boards, photographic images, letters, and books line the north aisle, tracing the history of the commission and giving an overview of Piper’s work. In the chapel of St Edmund of Abingdon and St Thomas of Canterbury, one of the vestments from the high-mass set of yellow Thai silk which Piper designed in 1967 is set out; it is a chasuble and not a cope as stated.
Two letters that Piper sent to the dean are displayed, but we do not learn much about the tensions around the commission, as only the first page of each letter can be read, ending mid-sentence. “I feel I criticized a lot of things in the cathedral and behaved a bit like a rather . . .”, he wrote on 9 August 1962. What did he criticise?
After a last-minute theological objection from an unnamed archdeacon to the representation of the Trinity, he worried, “and I foresee the greatest trouble in meeting his demands. Why did he not make them in October, since when the . . .” (22 January 1965). A note on a later postcard suggests a possible solution.
John Piper (1903-92) and his second wife, Myfanwy, already knew the Dean, Walter Hussey, when Hussey approached him, prompted by Sir Basil Spence and Henry Moore, for a tapestry to liven up the “rather gloomy and not at all distinguished” sanctuary. Piper chose to provide seven hanging panels to fill the blind arcades of the oak screen introduced by the last pre-Reformation Bishop of Chichester, Robert Sherburne (1503-36), who accepted the Royal Supremacy, but then resigned, dying 11 weeks later at the age of 82.
The cartoon was finally sent in February 1966 to the French tapestry-makers Pinton Frères at Fellinet, near Aubusson (Creuse) who had woven Sutherland’s pictorial tapestry for the new Coventry Cathedral. It was worked up by July that year at a cost of £3269 and laid out in the town square, as photographed for the Telegraph of 23 September 1966. The tapestry had been dedicated three days earlier.
Edward Mullins, in this article for the colour supplement, drew unwelcome attention to the final cost of £6000. The previous year (January 1965), an appeal for a quarter of a million pounds had been launched to save the cathedral. I still have the biscuitware plaque sold in aid of the appeal which my maternal grandfather bought for me when he took me to see the tapestry soon after it was installed.
There were mixed views of the modernity of the work itself. Not all who saw it were impressed. The pernickety Chancellor Canon Cheslyn Jones, principal of the local theological college, had made himself look ridiculous by wearing sunglasses in protest at the choral evensong at the dedication. The Dean and Chapter have released none of the relevant Chapter Minutes. They might include Canon Jones’s peppery comments and would further inform the history of the commission.
Elsewhere, Piper enjoys a perennial fascination for gallery-goers. The Portland Gallery in Bennet Street, London SW1, has a major retrospective, “John Piper 1903-1992”, until 8 May.
“Glowing + Alive” is at Chichester Cathedral until 15 November.
chichestercathedral.org.uk
portlandgallery.com/exhibitions