Dame Joanna's call to the monastic life followed a meeting with Dame Werburg Welch at Stanbrook Abbey in Worcestershire, where she was herself to become a religious.
Dame Werburg entered Stanbrook in 1915. Expecting to give up art altogether, she found herself instead being encouraged to extend her scope to vestment designs and wood-engravings for the Press. Desmond Chute and Eric Gill gave her postal tuition. As a result she adopted Gill's angular style, which was a life-long influence on her own work.
After her paintings, vestment designs and wood-carvings received favourable reviews at exhibitions of the Guild of Catholic Artists and Craftsmen in the 1930s and 1940s, commissions came in from churches and private individuals all over the country. Illustrations appeared in contemporary Catholic magazines such as Art Notes and L'Artisan Liturgique.
Stations of the Cross painted by Dame Werburg include a set painted on wood for the Church of Christ the King, Bromborough, Cheshire (c.1950); those painted for the Catholic Chaplaincy at Birmingham University c.1961; and c.1956 the set for St. Edmunds, Isle of Dogs. The Isle of Dogs paintings, along with the church building, suffered severe deterioration from damp but were restored for the new church in 1998. The Stations of the Cross carved in wood by Dom Vincent Duprè of Farnborough Abbey for the Anglican church of All Saints, Weston-super-Mare, were designed by Dame Werburg, as were the Douai Abbey Stations carved in stone by Dom Aloysius Bloor. Other major works include several large hanging crucifixes and the carved oak crucifix commissioned c. 1982 for the Czech chaplaincy in London.
Examples of Dame Werburg's work can be seen by clicking here.
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Karl Jenkins - Benedictus.
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