Rosemary Rutherford: East Window at St Peter's Nevendon

On Sunday I led my first service at St Peter's Nevendon, which has a significant - being her first - stained glass window by Rosemary Rutherford. My sermon from this service on the Good Samaritan can be read here.

The East Window at St Peter’s Nevendon is an important stained glass window by Rosemary Rutherford. It illustrates the Transfiguration with the central figure being Christ flanked by Moses on the left and Elijah on the right. St Peter kneels in the centre with St John to the left and his brother St James to the right.

Rutherford studied art in Chelmsford and at the Slade in London in the 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, where her father was Rector, to replace those shattered by bombing. She 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.

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.

Project Rutherford at St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield centres on the preservation and conservation of 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’.

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.

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

Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. My poem 'Broomfield', part of my 'Five Trios' series, reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

For more on the artists of Broomfield, all of whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here, here and here.

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Benjamin Britten - A Boy Was Born.

St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield: Thomas Huxley-Jones and Gwynneth Holt

Today, I gave a talk at Broomfield Parish Church about Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones and Gwynneth Holt, two of the Broomfield artists who, along with Rosemary Rutherford, created artworks for many churches in the area covered by the Diocese of Chelmsford in the twentieth century. 

Some of the works I included in the talk were the following:

Given the amount of work by the Broomfield artists within the area covered by the Diocese of Chelmsford, I suggested that it might be possible to create an art trail around the Diocese as a way to highlight their contribution to the churches of the Diocese. Such a trail would begin at Broomfield Parish Church with the artworks the, the graves of Rutherford, Huxley-Jones and Holt in the churchyard, and the wonderful Rutherford exhibition, but would then take those following the trail around the Diocese to demonstrate the importance to the churches of the Diocese of these three Broomfield artists.  

Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. My poem 'Broomfield', part of my 'Five Trios' series, reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

For more on the artists of Broomfield, all of whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here, here and here.

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Bono, The Edge & Friends - Invisible.

Broomfield artists talk: Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones and Gwynneth Holt

 

Tomorrow, I am speaking at Broomfield Parish Church about Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones and Gwynneth Holt, two of the Broomfield artists whose work features in many churches within the Diocese of Chelmsford. Both were significant artists whose work would benefit from rediscovery. Find out more at 2.00 pm tomorrow.

This talk is a Project Rutherford talk. Project Rutherford promotes the life and works of the artist Rosemary Rutherford through an exhibition, talks and trails.

https://stmarybroomfield.org/rutherford-project/

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John Taverner - Ikon Of Light.

All Saints Stock Harvard: Gwynneth Holt

As part of preparation for my 'People and Stone' talk on 'Broomfield Artists: Thomas Huxley-Jones and Gwynneth Holt' (8 February, 2.00 pm, Broomfield Parish Church), I visited All Saints Stock Harvard briefly this morning to photograph their rood figures carved by Holt.

These are now on the north wall at the west end of the North Aisle. Before 1986 this area housed the Sacristry and was cleared with the building of the new Vestries on the North side of the church. The Rood Figures of Our Lord, Our Lady and St. John were designed in 1955 by Holt and are carved in lime wood. As part of the post war restoration these figures were originally position in the Chancel Arch on a Rood Beam. The figures were incorporated in a hanging rood, still in the Chancel Arch, as part of the 1981 re-ordering but were moved to their present position in about 1990 to open up the view of the East Window.

The Parish Magazine of Stock Harvard (May 1955) contains the following comment about the figure of Christ on the rood beam at All Saints Church: "The figure speaks to us of eternal wisdom combined with eternal youth, and there is about the whole figure and its expression a strength and calmness which communicates itself to people who look at it long enough with a really open mind ... The figure has that strange factor of timelessness which some of the medieval artists secured."

The blue plaque information from Chelmsford City Council records that “In 1952, Holt was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. She also produced works in the United States when she visited the Hopkins Centre at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in both 1963 and 1968. Holt was also known to be one of the Royal Society of Sculptors earliest female members, where she expressed frustration at the sculpture profession being dominated by men. Following her death, Holt’s work has been showcased in many places by both the Royal Society of Sculptors and Chelmsford Museum.” 

In expressing her frustration with the male-dominated nature of her profession, she said: “Women are just as intelligent as men, and their contribution to art is just as valuable: They are not given a chance to take art up seriously. What with looking after the house, there is not much time left for concentrating on art."

Joan Weedon writes that from the time Holt married Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones (also a sculptor) “both exhibited at the London, Scottish and West of England academies, the Society of Portrait Sculptors and the Paris Salon. Among the awards Gwynneth won were the Feodora Gleichen award (for 'outstanding work by a woman sculptor') for her 'Mother and Child' exhibited at the Royal Academy, and two at the Paris Salon for 'Arts Decoratif and for sculpture. A set of her wartime figurines of a semi-humorous character [‘Our Gang’], which were cast by the Bovey Tracey pottery, is now in the Imperial War Museum. While living in Aberdeen she also exhibited work in ivories, woods, copper, terracotta and bronze in London and Edinburgh.

[They] moved to Broomfield, Chelmsford, in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden [at High House] and both achieved high personal success. Huxley-Jones's brilliant, imaginative figures gained him wide recognition, and he undoubtedly influenced Gwynneth's own style, although her life studies at that time may be perceived as more naturalistic than the style of her husband's large symbolic works.”

“Holt completed many works with a religious theme, or for ecclesiastical buildings, such as His Holiness Pope John XXIII, Hands, The Resurrection and Mother and Child. She completed commissions for the pulpit of St. Andrew’s Church in Hornchurch, Essex; the chapel of the East Mission in Stepney and the limewood The Immaculate Conception for the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Chelmsford.”

“It was for her work in ivory, however, that Holt was most celebrated as a sculptor, and her ivory sculpture Annunciation (1946) received particular praise for her carving skills. Annunciation depicts the Virgin Mary, her palms raised to God, with Gabriel depicted beneath her feet. In the 1972 book Modern Ivory Carving, Holt was described as ‘Britain’s foremost ivory carver’.”

Weedon also notes that: “The demonstrable piety of many of Gwynneth's exhibits created a demand for interpretations of Christian figures and symbols. Eight churches in and around Essex contain her important representations of such figures, and there are other such works traceable to her 'Chelmsford phase'. 

Examples of her work may be seen in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Chelmsford; Stock Harvard Parish Church, Essex; Balsham Parish Church, Cambs; St Andrew's, Hornchurch, Essex: Downham Church, Essex; Methodist East End Mission, London; Navestock Church, Essex; Buxhall Church, Suffolk; St Leonard's Parish Church, Eynsham.”

Broomfield Parish Church has a prayer desk of light oak decorated on the plain apron front with an applied carved head by Gwynneth Holt. The head of the Virgin Mary is in 20th C style, her bare head emerging from a cowl.

The grave of Holt and Huxley-Jones is to be found in the churchyard St Mary with St Leonard in Broomfield.

My poem 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations together with that of Rosemary Rutherford. For more on the artists of Broomfield, all of whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here, here and here.

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Enya - Dreams Are More Precious.

Unveiled: Broomfield artists in the Basildon Deanery

 

Broomfield artists in the Basildon Deanery 

Friday 6 December, 7.00 pm

St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN

Find out about artworks in Basildon and Nevendon by Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones and Rosemary Rutherford. 

Rutherford, Huxley-Jones & Gwynneth Holt were artists based in Broomfield who undertook many commissions in Essex.  

An illustrated talk by Jonathan Evens. 

Part of ‘Unveiled’, the Friday night arts & performance event at St Andrew’s Church.

Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. My poem 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations. For more on the artists of Broomfield, all of whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here, here and here.

I will also be speaking about Huxley-Jones and Holt at Broomfield Parish Church on Saturday 8 February at 2.00 pm as part of their 'People and Stone' programme.

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World Party - Put The Message In A Box.  

The religious art of Rosemary Rutherford

Today I gave a talk, with Kathy Rouse, at St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield about the religious art of Rosemary Rutherford. 

In my part of the talk I explained that 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, Hilda Carline, Enid Chadwick, Evelyn Dunbar, Gwen John, Laura Knight, Winifred Knights, Dod Procter, Betty Swanwick and Annie Walke. All of these artists, who challenged the conventions of their day to become respected artists, engaged with religious art or church commissions. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century there was also a movement looking for a re-association of the Artist and the Church following the break in that relationship caused by the beginnings of modernism. Laura Knight, Dod Proctor and Annie Walke were involved in a project to decorate St Hilary’s Church near Goldsithney in Cornwall, while Vanessa Bell was part of a project to decorate St Michael and All Angels at Berwick in Sussex. Added impetus was given to this movement following the Second World War as windows and churches needed repair.Artists such as Elizabeth Frink, Henry Moore, John Piper and Graham Sutherland became associated with this development.

Rosemary Rutherford was part of these artistic movements, benefiting from them and making a significant contribution to them. I used the talk as an opportunity to compare and contrast the religious art of Rutherford with others creating work in a similar period. By doing so, I aimed to identify some of the strengths of Rutherford’s contribution and some of the shared emphases of the movements of which she was part.

I ended the talk by saying that religious and biblical art was a significant part of Rosemary’s oeuvre, as would be expected of an artist who was deeply religious. Her spirituality and her inspiration as an artist were very much in harmony leading her to create profound, compelling and often original depictions of Biblical scenes and stories. Her expressive approach means that her images have both emotional impact and spiritual depth. However, her religious paintings are by no means as well known as her stained glass. They are often in private hands rather than public collections and, in some cases, as with St Paul’s Clacton, who have a marvellous collection of works, there is not the space to display them. McVitie Weston, who support this series, also have a substantive holding of Rosemary’s religious art. 

Susan Gray, writing in Church Times, viewed Rosemary Rutherford as one of Benton End’s rediscovered stars in the exhibition “Life with Art: Benton End and the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing” at Firstsite in Colchester. That exhibition has been followed by exhibitions focusing on the careers of first Lucy Harwood and then, at Gainsborough's House, Cedric Morris and Lett Haines. A similar retrospective for Rutherford would enable more of us to rediscover the beauty, depth and originality of her work, in particular that of her religious art.

On Friday 6 December (7.00 pm) at St Andrew's Wickford, I will be giving an illustrated talk on Broomfield artists in the Basildon Deanery. Find out about artworks in Basildon and Nevendon by Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones and Rosemary Rutherford.

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Paul Mealor - She Walks In Beauty.

Rosemary Rutherford's Religious Art - St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield

This Saturday I will be giving a talk on 'Rosemary Rutherford's Religious Art' at St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield, together with Kathy Rouse. The talk begins at 2.00 pm. 

Rutherford studied art in Chelmsford and at the Slade in London in the 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, where her father was Rector, to replace those shattered by bombing. She 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.

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.

Project Rutherford at St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield centres on the preservation and conservation of 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’.

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.

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

Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. My poem entitled 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations. For more on the artists of Broomfield, all of whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here, here and here.

I will be giving a talk on these artists and their work in Essex at St Andrew's Wickford on Friday 6 December at 7.00 pm. 

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Maria McKee - Breathe.

Pleshey poem included on Retreat House website

Following the publication by Amethyst Review of my poem entitled 'Pleshey', the poem has been added to the website of the Retreat House at Pleshey. It can be found there by clicking here.  

The poem, which celebrates the Diocesan Retreat House at Pleshey in Essex and the legacy of Evelyn Underhill as a retreat director, is part of a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in Essex called 'Four Essex Trios'. My posts about Pleshey can be found here and my posts about Evelyn Underhill here.

The first poem in the sequence to be written - 'Runwell' - was also published by Amethyst Review and has recently been included in the Amethyst Press anthology, Thin Places and Sacred Spaces, This poem takes the reader on a visit to St Mary's Runwell, while also reflecting on the spirituality of the space plus its history and legends.

The second poem in the sequence to be published is at International Times and is entitled 'Broomfield' Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. My poem reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations. For more on the artists of Broomfield, all of whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here, here and here. I will be giving a talk on 'Rosemary Rutherford's Religious Art' at St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield in November, together with Kathy Rouse (see below). This talk will be followed, in December, by a talk on the Broomfield artists at St Andrew's Wickford (see below). 

The final poem in this sequence - 'Bradwell' - will be published shortly.

Amethyst Review is a publication for readers and writers who are interested in creative exploration of spirituality and the sacred. Readers and writers of all religions and none are most welcome. All work published engages in some way with spirituality or the sacred in a spirit of thoughtful and respectful inquiry, rather than proselytizing.

The Editor-in-chief is Sarah Law – poet (mainly), tutor, occasional critic, sometime fiction writer. She has published five poetry collections, the latest of which is 'Thérèse: Poems'. Her novel, Sketches from a Sunlit Heaven is a 2023 Illumination Book Award silver medal winner. She set up Amethyst Review feeling the lack of a UK-based platform for the sharing and readership of new literary writing that engages in some way with spirituality and the sacred.

Four of my poems have appeared in Amethyst Review, in addition to 'Pleshey'. They are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'. To read my poems published by Stride Magazine, click here, here, here, here, and here. My poem entitled 'The ABC of creativity' is at International Times. It covers attention, beginning and creation and can be read here.

Several of my short stories have also been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

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The Moody Blues - Watching and Waiting.