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The wonderful thing about the Methodist Collection of Modern Christian Art is that its trustees are tirelessly inventive and proactive in getting it seen. Frankly they put to shame the curators of some our great institutions, where the stacks overflow with works stored and forgotten for decades. Last week I had an e-mail from the ceramist Crispin Owen, who sent images of Christ Writes in the Dust at the University of Central Lancashire, where selected works from the Methodist Collection are currently being shown. (Crispin helped set up and hang the UCLan exhibition.) This is I think the third venue… there may have been more that I missed… that the painting has appeared at since it was loaned by the Methodist Collection to my retrospective at The National Library of Wales last year, so Christ and the adulterous woman have been putting plenty of miles under their belts.
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I find it most heartening to know that there are innovative ways of getting paintings out and into the world to be seen by many, and the Trustees of the Methodist Collection could give seminars on how to do it! This is the most splendid example of a magnificent collection being used to rewrite the book on ‘outreach’. My thanks to Crispin for sending the above image.
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The exhibition runs from 23 June – 18 July at St Peter’s Art Centre, Preston. From there it moves on to the Central Hall, Westminster, where it may be seen from 28 July – 9 September. Included in it are works by Graham Sutherland, Edward Burra, Eric Gill, Patrick Heron, Elizabeth Frink, Jaques Iselin, Georges Rouault, Craigie Aitchison, and of course, me.
