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© Helen Whittaker 2018 | helen@barleystudio.co.uk | www.helenwhittakerart.com

WESTMINSTER ABBEY LONDON

The Queen’s Window designed by David Hockney RA –

West Wall of North Transept (3.5m x 8.5m) 2018

When the Dean of Westminster, The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, wanted to commission something for Westminster Abbey to celebrate the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, the UK's longest-reigning monarch, he felt that David Hockney RA was the obvious choice to design for our exciting medium of glass. Hockney, one of the most influential British artists of The Queen's reign, had never worked in stained glass, and so Dr Hall contacted Barley Studio to ask if we would work with him, to translate the design into glass. The Dean was able to make contact with David Hockney through an intriguing connection – the sister of Ptolemy Dean, Surveyor to the Fabric of Westminster Abbey, is the artist Tacita Dean RA, who had previously filmed Hockney for her series ‘Portraits’ (2016). The Dean's brief to Hockney was to provide something symbolic or representational of the subject, rather than a heraldic or figurative design, and for it to be recognisable as his work. Tacita suggested to Hockney that he might draw inspiration from his stunning paintings of the Yorkshire Wolds, an area close to his Bradford birthplace and also local to Barley Studio. Hockney's design depicts a country scene featuring hawthorn blossom, which he has described as ‘a celebration’, reflecting The Queen as a countrywoman and her great love of the countryside. The initial design for The Queen’s Window was created, like many of Hockney’s previous works, on an iPad – which he considered a natural design tool for the project because, like a stained-glass window, it is back-lit. Hockney was also inspired by the work of other painters who worked in stained glass, such as Henri Matisse, and he wanted to understand and respect this traditional craft. When he visited Barley Studio during the project, he was able to see every aspect of stained glass creation and conservation. Soon afterwards, Helen was invited to stay with David in California to assist him in translating his design ideas into glass.

As the window is so large, David and Helen worked initially at half scale to develop the picture and the leadlines. The half size outline of the window incorporated the existing support structure (ferramenta), as David was very keen to retain this important historic element of the window. Hockney chose beautiful mouth-blown glass, made by Glashütte Lamberts in Germany, to realise his distinctively bold colour palette of yellow, red, blue, pink, orange and green. Lamberts already offer a vast array of colours, but were happy to develop a special recipe to match Hockney’s deep pink – one of the most expensive colours to make in glass, as the colouring metal is gold. Once enlarged to full size, Helen created full-scale cutlines for the glass taking care to capture exactly Hockney’s linework. As he says, there are no straight lines in nature and the flowing, asymmetrical shapes are absolutely characteristic of his pictures. Hockney also decided that he wanted to use the same size lead throughout, following his initial iPad design, and he liked how the design contrasted some intense areas of leading alongside much lighter areas. The window is unusual in stained glass as it uses no glass paint, only glass and lead to create the artwork. The only painted piece in the window is Hockney’s signature at the bottom right – which was flown to Los Angeles to be signed in glass paint, and then flown back to York to be fired in the kiln. Barley Studio installed the window in the north transept of Westminster Abbey in September 2018, watched from the ground by David Hockney. The window was dedicated by The Dean of Westminster at a special service on 2nd October 2018, attended by Helen and Keith alongside David and many of his family, friends and supporters of the project.

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© Helen Whittaker 2018 | helen@barleystudio.co.uk | www.helenwhittakerart.com

WESTMINSTER ABBEY LONDON

The Queen’s Window designed by David Hockney RA –

West Wall of North Transept (3.5m x 8.5m) 2018