St Thomas More Catholic Church, Dulwich, London SE22
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St Thomas More Catholic Church, Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, London SE22 8NDRecommended by
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South transept south window, An Apparition of St ColumbaArtist, maker and date
Patrick Pye, made at his own studio, Tallaght, County Dublin, 1970Reason for highlighting
Patrick Pye was Ireland’s leading religious artist of the second half of the twentieth century, and in addition to many works on canvas and paper, he created stained glass windows over a period of four decades. This window is his only overseas window. Pye titled it ‘An apparition of St Columba’ and inscribed it, ‘Presented to this church by the Knights of St Columba 26 XI 70’. (The Knights of St Columba, founded in 1919, is a fraternal organisation affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church in England, Scotland and Wales).
Although Pye considered himself a narrative artist, many of his windows are idiosyncratic and the viewer can benefit from any explanation he may have provided which reveals his personal vision and interpretation. In this instance we are fortunate to know the particular story that inspired his depiction: ‘The theme of the window is taken from a story in St Adamnan’s ‘Life’. It tells how, every evening, the monks return from the work of the fields. One of the brothers is always struck by a sense of blessedness at the same point on the way home. All the fatigue of the day seems lifted from his shoulders. Then he finds that other monks experience the same sensation. Together they ask the oldest brother and he explains that this is the moment of the evening when St Columba retires to his chapel to pray for them.’ Pye treats all three lights and tracery as a single canvas; at the base the monks are depicted returning from the fields carrying their farming implements while the upper two-thirds is dominated by a patchwork of fields which merge into a dramatic sky. There is a sense of how small and insignificant humans are when compared with the awe-inspiring power of nature.
Artist/maker notes
Patrick Pye (1928–2018) was born in Winchester and moved with his mother to Ireland in 1932. At secondary school he first encountered, via a library book, the art of El Greco which would leave a lasting impression on him. Pye undertook his first stained glass commission, a somewhat abstract depiction of St Brigid, for St Brendan’s cathedral, Loughrea, County Galway in 1957 most likely made in An Túr Gloine where his friend Patrick Pollen was renting studio space.
With a deep interest in religion and spirituality he converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1963. Alongside his career as a painter and etcher of still lives, landscapes and religious subjects he created around thirty-four windows for seventeen locations, all but one on the island of Ireland, the last of which was in 1998. Responding to a question about the purpose of stained glass in contemporary churches he opined ‘I think it has the function of moving us, of touching our hearts, of making a world in the window which is very different to the world we live in. The colours are strong. It’s a wonderful medium for expression…’ (quoted in ‘Vocation and Vision’, see below).
Sources:
Anon, The Lady Chapel, St Thomas More’s Church, Dulwich (dedication leaflet, 1970. Church archive)
Brian McAvera, ‘Vocation and Vision’, Irish Arts Review (Spring, 2009).
Brian McAvera’s biographical note on Pye in the Gazetteer of Irish Stained Glass (Irish Academic Press, 2021)


