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Krueger
Director
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Fri May 25th, 2007 08:47 pm |
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JOHN DAVID HAYWARD
Distinguished stained glass artist.
John Hayward, who died from a heart attack on May 19, aged 77, was a stained glass artist who designed and made nearly 200 windows which irradiate churches and Cathedrals throughout Britain and abroad. His eloquent use of symbolism, colour and paint involved a severe discipline which harnesses that eloquence to a particular meaning to all those who see his windows. From 1974 he devoted himself to glass but before that he also designed and made what he called 'other things' for church interiors.
John was born on July 16 1929 in Tooting. His father, David, was a printer whose hobby was bookbinding. His mother, Violet, had fair, wavy hair which John inherited. From his father came an innate and charming modesty. Betty, Mike and Bill completed the family. He was educated at Tooting Bec Grammar School and remembered an inspiring art teacher, Jack Leviin, who recognised and encouraged in him a talent for drawing and painting. Summers were spent in fidls and landscapes became an enduring fascination. As a student at St Martin's School of Art he was impressed by Seurat and Piero della Francesca who used the device of figures in a landscape as a language to express ideas. Another intriguing study was images of the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna and iconography.
Although offered a place at The Royal College of Art, he decided to join Faithcraft designing church furniture and arranging whole interiors where glass was one important element. He was influenced by the architectural principles of Laurence Kind and Cachemaille-Day who were interested in the Liturgical Movement which was concerned with what churches were for, not what they should look like. They were for the performance of liturgy.
He married Ros, an artist, in 1952 and they had two daughters. In 1961 he carried out his ambition to go free-lance and set up a studio in Blechingley, close to the Southwark Ordination Centre. There was a great demand for artists in the post-war church-building boom and his first major commission was a scheme of wiindows for the ruined Wren church, St Mary-le-Bow. It was the beginning of 13 years when he worked on glass and 'other things'. His windows for Paternoster Royal in London (with Dick Whittington's cat) followed Bow. He made a whole wall of glass 'Images of Heaven' at Croydon. At Old Basing, The Angel of Peace window, he said 'almost designed itself'. There were numerous commissions for church furniture, altars, crosses and candlesticks. He painted a series of wall paintings and made an aluminium sculpture for St Michael and All Angels, Hackney - the church now Grade II listed because of his art. Perhaps the greatest example of his enthusiasm to create a whole interior as a work of art is Blackburn Cathedral where he designed a central altar and, above it, a steel corona lit from above by a glass lantern (which he made). He designed organ cases, Chapels, painted icons and made windows. On the West wall is another of his sculptures, a huge Christ the Worker.
After 1974 the demand for new church furniture declined but churches still wanted stained glass and he created a stream of windows, too many to list here. Each commission, whatever its size, was designed for its unique space, meticulously painted and stained.
In 1989 he moved to Dorset to retire mainly because his childhood holidays were enjoyed in Swanage. Almost immediately he was asked to design a window to replace the Victorian Great West Window at Sherborne Abbey - an appeal which he couldn't resist. The original window had lost much of its paint and was in poor condition. There was a heated debate between those who wanted the window to be restored and those who believed a new window would enhance the Abbey. The media picked up the story and followed its progress through a Consistory Court and the Court of Arches. Eventually the decision was for John's window, The Incarnation, to be made and it was installed ready for its dedication before the Queen in 1998. It is a brilliant statement of his personal beliefs, expressed symbolically, for the moment of the Incarnation.
In 2001 he made three millennium windows. One for Sherborne commemorating the Royal visit. Another window at Blackford which shows Christ as an unusually young and beardless Good Shepherd and a monumental Madonna and Child at Norwich Cathedral. In the same year he achieved a life-long ambition to visit Ravenna to wonder at the icons and mosaics which had inspired his work.
He was often in demand for lectures for which he is irreplaceable. Those who have heard him will remember his grasp of detail, his passion for his art and his wry humour which revealed a perception of the ironies of life and the absurdities of human beings, not least himself.
He finished his last window in April this year for St Peter, Limpsfield, Surrey. It depicts a seated St Cecilia in his characteristic blues, greens and golds and will be dedicated on the Saint's Day on 22 November.
There will be a Memorial Service at Sherborne Abbey later this year.
His daughter, Catherine, a jeweller, pre-deceased him. He is survived by his wife, his daughter Cecilia, a sculptor, four grandsons and a great-grandchild.
This is the official obituary for John Hayward which was forwarded to me today by Doris Rollinson in England.
Barbara Krueger
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