Jane Gray (b.1931)

St Peter’s Church, Monkmoor Road, Shrewsbury, Design for Stained Glass Window (1990)

Watercolour

D.12 cm

Signed, dated and studio stamp verso.

St Peter’s is a small, modern mission church adjoining Shrewsbury Abbey and was consecrated shortly before the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Gray’s stained glass design sensitively yet strikingly reflects this simple site of religious worship in her typical modern-medieval style. Important numbers in Christian iconography are included: three for the Trinity (Body, Mind, and Spirit), four for the material world of the Elements, and so, together, seven which combines the worlds of matter and spirit and is thus regarded as the perfect number. At the centre of the window sits the Chi-Ro, or monogram of Christ, placed against the emblems of St Peter (a pair of crossed keys and an inverted Latinate cross). Surrounding the design, seven fish swim in a turquoise sea. The window was installed in 1992.

Provenance: the artist’s studio sale.

Literature: Jane Gray, Playing with Rainbows. (Shropshire: Ellingham Press, 2011), pp.48, 81.

Condition: very good.

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