
Luke Batterham
Senior Valuer
This auction has ended. View lot details
Sold for £875 inc. premium
Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialist
Senior Valuer
CHRIST IN GLORY IN COVENTRY CATHEDRAL: Graham Sutherland originally accepted the commission to design a tapestry for Coventry Cathedral in 1952 and worked on it over ten years, making nine visits to its weavers in France to check on their progress as they worked from photographic enlargements of his cartoons or finished sketches: 'It remains the most controversial as well as the largest single item in the rebuilt cathedral, its sheer size causing serious problems of sagging' (Roger Berthoud, ODNB). Once at Coventry, it is clear that the redoubtable Park took charge and made a major contribution to its display, Sutherland telling him: "The hanging looks excellent. For your information the most important thing is that the centre line going straight through the centre of the head of the Christ & right through the centre of the little man between His feet should be absolutely perpendicular... A certain amount of undulation is good but it is owing to the very great size of this work that there is as much as appears in the photos. So long as the strict 'horizontalism & perpendicularism' is preserved (this having been calculated to a hairs breadth to try to give the figure a taut ascending feeling, I shall be happy".