We’re excited to welcome ‘A Last Supper: Drawing an Altarpiece’ to the Cathedral!
Lorna May Wadsworth is one of Sheffield’s real artistic success stories.
This winter, Lorna returns home for a major retrospective exhibition at the city’s Graves Gallery spanning her 25 year career. To coincide with the show we are installing an altarpiece of her work in the Cathedral's Chapel of the Holy Spirit.
Portraits and religious themes
Her Graves show GAZE includes a dazzling array of portraits, with celebrated sitters including actors David Tennant and Derek Jacobi, filmmaker Richard Curtis, author Neil Gaiman, politicians David Blunkett and Tony Blair and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Religious themed work features heavily among the famous faces, with modern interpretations of St. Francis of Assisi, The Virgin Mary and a sad and beautiful Angel with strap on wings. The exhibition culminates in her critically acclaimed 12-foot-long oil on aluminium reworking of Leonardo’s Last Supper (St George’s Church, Nailsworth) from 2009, which was painted entirely from life with Jesus represented by black fashion model Tafari.
At the same time as the exhibition opens, Sheffield Cathedral will host Wadsworth's charcoal cartoon for the monumental work, offering an insight into the creation of the finished painting and a beautiful tonal counterpoint. A Last Supper: Drawing an Altarpiece will be in situ for one year.
Rowan Williams commented on the Nailsworth altarpiece at the time of its 2010 unveiling at an Exhibition at St Martin in the Fields:
“I love the finished piece. It moves and pulsates, in colour and texture, and is a wholly remarkable work, I believe.”
A Last Supper: Drawing an Altarpiece will be in the Cathedral from Nov 2019 for one year.
GAZE: A Retrospective of Portraits by Lorna May Wadsworth is at Graves Gallery 9 Nov 2019 - Feb 15 2020.