Jane Gray (b.1931)

St Peter’s Church, Martindale, Design for Benedicite Stained Glass Windows (1975-77)

Watercolour

32.5 x 8 cm

St Peter’s Church was built in Martindale, Cumbria in 1880 by a local craftsman using stone from the surrounding area. The church is situated in an enchanting rural oasis and has connections to the acclaimed modern poet, Kathleen Raine, who lived in the Old Vicarage, as well as William and Dorothy Wordsworth who visited the area on one of their Cumbrian excursions. Gray’s ‘Martindale Era’ lasted from 1974-1981, in which time, she designed and installed fifteen stained glass windows in St Peter’s Church. This pair of windows were commissioned as Gray was constructing her fifth, and supposedly last, window; the church had received a gift from an American donor who shared the name ‘Martindale’ and the vicar decided to commission two more windows on the them of the Benedicite.

Provenance: the artist’s studio sale.

Literature: Jane Gray, Playing with Rainbows. (Shropshire: Ellingham Press, 2011), pp.17-18, 74.

Condition: very good.

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