St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield: Rosemary Rutherford

 

Rosemary Rutherford was part of a generation of innovative female artists whose work is increasingly being rediscovered and re-evaluated. These artists include Vanessa Bell, Gwen John, Winifred Knights, Evelyn Dunbar, Betty Swanwick, Hilda Carline, Laura Knight and Dod Procter (click here for more information).

Rosemary Rutherford studied art in Chelmsford and at the Slade in London in 1930s. She also trained in the art of true fresco. She was a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) Red Cross nurse during the second world war and created a large portfolio of sketches and paintings of all she observed in hospitals, both at home and in Sri Lanka.

She learnt stained glass making and created 40 windows, including four in Broomfield church to replace those shattered by bombing. She attended the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing at Benton End run by Cedric Morris where she painted flowers and landscapes. Her paintings have gained renewed interest, not least because she was one of only a few women war artists.

Project Rutherford at St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield centres on the preservation and conservation of Rosemary Rutherford’s special mural in the Norman round tower, St Mary’s unique 20th century fresco. Its protection within the tower and its promotion has involved replacement of the spire shingles, repair of the spire’s wooden framework, repointing of the round tower, conservation of the fresco itself and outreach to all church users and to the wider community in bringing the fresco, and Rosemary Rutherford, ‘out into the open’.

Rutherford was deeply religious and her spirituality guided her artworks. Her fresco at Broomfield church shows ‘Christ Stilling the Storm’ and was surely intended to give people hope during the frightening turmoil of wartime.

To bring the life and works of this remarkable but largely forgotten artist to the attention of the wider community, a permanent exhibition was opened in 2023. This exhibition summarises Rosemary’s life and extraordinary artistic achievements. Models reveal how fresco and stained glass are made. Some of her remarkable range of drawings and paintings are shown, including wartime artwork and flower paintings. Her spiritual, caring nature and brilliant artistry shine through.

Rutherford is perhaps most widely known for her stained glass windows, mostly in churches, throughout East Anglia and further afield from Yorkshire to Sussex and even in New Zealand. The exhibition features a montage of many of her windows showing her versatility of style and subject. Her love of bright, bold colours is evident both in the east window of Broomfield church, in her earlier figurative designs and in the more abstract compositions at Boxford and in windows made posthumously to her designs at Hinderclay in Suffolk.

This permanent exhibition can be viewed during church opening times, currently Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30 to 12:30 and after Sunday services.

The full list of Rutherford's windows is as follows:

Essex
Bradfield St Lawrence's 1960 (2 windows)
Broomfield St Mary's 1951-66 (4 windows)
Clacton on Sea St Paul's 1965
Halstead RC church 1955
Nevendon St Peter's 1950
Tendring St Edmund's 1967
Lancashire
Aspull (Wigan) St Elizabeth's 1968
Leicestershire
Grimston St John the Baptist's 1966
Saxelbye St Peter's 1959
London
Moorfields Eye Hospital Chapel 1971 (2 dalle de verre windows)
Norfolk
Gaywood St Faith's 1966
Norwich St Margaret's (made by Michael King, possibly to Rutherford's design?)
Oxfordshire
Berinsfield SS Mary & Berin 1961 (4 dalle de verre windows)
Rutland
Preston SS Peter & Paul 1962
Suffolk
Boxford St Mary's 1972
Hinderclay St Mary's (5 windows made posthumously from Rutherford's designs)
Walsham le Willows St Mary's 1972
Surrey
Godalming Charterhouse School Memorial Chapel 1964 (3 dalle de verre panels)
Guildford Cathedral 1955
Merton Park Methodist Church 1958 (3 windows)
Sussex
Worthing Offington Park Methodist Church 1959 (3 grisaille windows)
West Midlands
Bartley Green St Michael's 1965 (several dalle de verre windows)
Sedgley All Saints 1971-2
Yorkshire
Brompton by Sawdon All Saints 1970
West Heslerton All Saints 1966
New Zealand
Hanmer Church 1966 (apse windows)
Havelock North Woodford House School 1961
Hereworth School Chapel 1964 (dalle de verre round window)

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