NEW stained glass by Mark Cazalet in St James’s, Norlands, in London, in memory of the Grenfell Tower fire victims, was among the commissions for churches installed during the year.
The 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen was marked by a new sculpture by Martin Jennings outside her resting place, Winchester Cathedral, as well as other events, including an exhibition “Jane Austen: Down to the Sea” (Dorset Museum, Dorchester).
The National Gallery marked its bicentenary with a rehang, and exhibitions there included “Discover Constable and The Hay Wain”; “Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350”; one about its new acquisition The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret, by a Netherlandish or French artist (c.1510); and “Millet: Life on the Land”.
Other exhibitions reviewed in the Church Times included “Reunited: The Lamentation Altarpiece” (Compton Verney); “Silk Roads” (British Museum); “The Reflected Self: Portrait Miniatures, 1540-1850” (Compton Verney); “The Genius of Milan” (Gallerie d’Italia, Milan); “Seeing the Unseen: Reality and Imagination in the Art of Stanley Spencer” (Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham); “Munkaczy: Story of a Worldwide Sensation” (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest); “Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes” (Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield); “A New Look at Cimabue: At the Origins of Italian Painting” (The Louvre, Paris); “Caravaggio 2025” (Gallerie Nazionali, Palazzo Barberini, Rome); Sylvester Houédard (Estorick Collection, London); “Gladiators of Britain” (Dorset Museum); “Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone” (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin); the late Paul Martin, “Where Echoes Rest (Dalkeith Palace, Edinburgh); “Chichester 950” (Chichester Cathedral); “Paolo Veronese 1528-1588” (Prado, Madrid); “The World of James VI and I” (National Galleries of Scotland, Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh); Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (Musée Conde, Château de Chantilly, France); “Retablos II: Spanish Paintings and Polychromed Sculpture from the 13th to 16th Centuries” (Sam Fogg, London); “Ithell Colquhoun” (Tate Britain, London); “Spiritual Britten” and “Darkness” at The Red House, Aldeburgh; “Anthony Lawrence (1951-2022): A Retrospective” (Palais des Vaches, Lower Exbury, Hampshire); “Alan Caine: Everyday Wonder and Revelation” (Clare Hall, Cambridge); “Clothed in Glory” (embroidery) (Ely Cathedral); “It Takes a Village” (Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft); and “Made in Egypt” (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).
Contemporary art exhibitions included Jacqui Parkinson, “Threads through the Cross”; “In Attendance”, an exhibition of 11 artists (Fitzrovia Chapel, London); Whales by Tessa Campbell Frazer (Winchester Cathedral); Portia Zvavahera (Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge); “A Story of Hope” (Newcastle Cathedral); “Cloud of Witnesses” (a group exhibition in St John’s, Waterloo, London); “Marta Jakobovits and Anderson Borba: Harvest” (Elizabeth Xi Bauer Gallery, Deptford); the British Association of Iconographers (Westminster Abbey); Mark Cazalet’s Stations (Powys); “Slipping the Veil”, a group show exhibition in St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, London; Francis Hoyland’s “The Life of Christ” (Chappel Galleries, Essex); “The Painted Word” by Jérémie Queyras (a response to T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets) in St Stephen’s, Gloucester Road, London; “Finding My Blue Sky”, a group exhibition (Lisson Gallery, London); the 257th RA Summer Exhibition; Woven Lives (Bradford Cathedral); Natasha Pearl, “Sanctuary of Light” (Natasha Pearl Gallery, Bekesbourne); “The Words That Bind Us” by Nicola Anthony (Durham Cathedral); Peace Doves by Peter Walker (Southwark Cathedral); “Tanya Ling: Worship Paintings” (Mayor Gallery, London); Definition in Five Parts by John Maine (Art in the Close, Norwich); “The Gentler Saints” by Rob Floyd (Manchester Cathedral); “Stephen Cox: Myth” (Houghton Hall, King’s Lynn); “And So, Change Comes in Waves” (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium); “Pablo Bronstein: The Temple of Solomon and Its Contents” (Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, online review); Tapestry of Black Britons (Dash & Miller, Wells Cathedral); Luke Jerram’s Mars: War and Peace and Mark Cazalet’s “12 Advent Stations” (Chelmsford Cathedral); Threads of Remembrance (St Martin-in-the-Fields, London); Decades by Louise Giovanelli (St Mary-le-Strand, London); and Narnia tableaux (St Bartholomew’s, Colne).
© The National Gallery, LondonNetherlandish or French, The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret, (c.1510), oil on wood, bought by the National Gallery with the support of the American Friends of the National Gallery, 2025
Sound and light shows included Poppy Fields by Luxmuralis (touring).
In the salerooms, St Mary Magdalen in Meditation by Artemisia Gentileschi sold for £1.4 million at Sotheby’s, London; Romania blocked the sale of a St Sebastian by El Greco, estimated at $7-9 million; Mary Magdalene by Raphael sold for $3.1 million in New York; Christ by Auguste Herbin sold for €43,360 at Christie’s, Paris; The Prophet Muhammad Meets Jesus (c.1466), commissioned by Sultan Abu Sa’id, sold for £2.339 million at Christie’s, London; St John the Baptist Preaching in the Wilderness by Anton Mengs sold for £152,400 at Sotheby’s, London; and Andy Warhol’s The Last Supper sold for $8.127 million at Sotheby’s, New York.
Marko Rupnik mosaics were covered up in Lourdes.
New musical works heard included Eric Whitacre’s Sacred Veil (St Martin-in-the-Fields (UK première); Jacques Cohen’s Lancastria (Lloyd’s Choir, St Giles Cripplegate); Bob Chilcott’s Mass for Peace and Reconciliation and Richard Blackford’s The Black Lake (Three Choirs, Hereford); and Sven Helbig’s Requiem A (Westminster Central Hall, UK première); King of Glory, King of Peace by Paul Edwards (Lincoln Cathedral); and Nolo Mortem Peccatoris by Errollyn Wallen (St John’s College, Cambridge).
Other musical performances of note included a programme of Charpentier (Palace of Versailles); Francesco Scarlatti, Il Daniele nel Lago de’ Leoni (Armonico Consort, Wigmore Hall); Antonio Draghi’s L’Humanità Redenta (Holy Trinity, Rotherhithe); works by Alessandro Scarlatti (Swarbrick Singers, All Saints’, Brixworth); Pizzetti’s Requiem (New London Singers, St Peter’s, Eaton Square); a Palestrina 500th-anniversary concert series (The Sixteen); Handel’s Dettingen Te Deum and locally related music at St Peter’s, Walworth, in London; Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s The Atonement, William Mathias’s This Worldes Joie, and Herbert Howells’s Hymnus Paradisi (Three Choirs, Hereford); John Taverner’s Veil of the Temple, Zielenski and Zebrowski, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Puccini’s Suor Angelica (Edinburgh International Festival); Vaughan Williams’s Sancta Civitas, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13, Babi Yar, and Arthur Bliss’s The Beatitudes (BBC Proms); Les Arts Florissants’ “The Great Audition of Leipzig” (Wigmore Hall) and Gesualdo Passione (with dancers from the Amala Dianor Company); and Dead Man Walking, an opera by Jake Heggie (ENO, London).
“The Rivers of Repair”, a concert on the theme of slavery and reparatory justice, was held at St Pancras New Church, London.
New albums included: Wild God (Nick Cave); The Other Side (T-Bone Burnett); Collodion (Andrew Rumsey); Parchman Prayer – Another Mississippi Sunday Morning (Prison inmates, Glitterbeat Records); Woodland (Gillian Welch and David Rawlings); GNX (Kendrick Lamar); Pink Elephant (Arcade Fire); and Psalter: Themes for Peace (Tim Boniface).
Manuel HarlanBrian Cox as J. S. Bach in The Score, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket
Theatre included The Score by Oliver Cotton (Theatre Royal Haymarket); The Brightening Air by ConorMcPherson (Old Vic, London); The Enterlude of the Godly Queen Hester (Edward’s Boys, touring); Poor Clare by Chiara Atik (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond); Altar by Em Tambree (Edinburgh Fringe); Till the Stars Come Down by Beth Steel (Theatre Royal Haymarket); The Last Stand of Mrs. Mary Whitehouse by Caroline Bird (Nottingham Playhouse); and Saturday Church (a musical about St Luke in the Fields, New York) by Damon Cardasis, James Ijames, Sia, and Honey Dijon (New York Theatre Workshop, off Broadway); and The Unbelievers by Nick Payne (Royal Court, London).
Darren Raymond received the Sam Wanamaker Award for his work with the project Intermission Youth, founded at St Saviour’s, Walton Place, in London.
Comedy and one-person shows included Touch Me Not (Sam Williams), God is Dead . . . And I Killed Him (Callum Patrick Hughes); and Seu Xeippa; Dance included Art of Andalucia (Bradford Cathedral).
Films reviewed in the Church Times included Maria; The Tasting; Memoir of a Snail; The Seed of the Sacred Fig; Oh My Goodness! (Juste Ciel!); Misericordia; Irena’s Vow; The King of Kings (animation); April; Parthenope; The Brutalist; The Salt Path; From Hilde, with Love; The Ritual; Consecration; Little Trouble Girls; The Ceremony; The Partisan; Brides; Sketch; The Choral; Valley of the Shadow of Death; The Carpenter’s Son; Wake Up Dead Man; and Dreamers.
