Renowned contemporary artist Lorna May Wadsworth (artist in residence for the Amazon Prime series Good Omens), exhibited The Book of Neil Gaiman at Shapero Rare Books located in its new first floor space on New Bond Street and Big Neil at newly opened Shapero Modern in an exciting short-term exhibition.

Author Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Neverwhere, Coraline), shown in these works at both Shapero spaces, is one of the most treasured storytellers of our time. In Big Neil Wadsworth has captured Gaiman ‘god sized’, in a 2 metre large head, echoing his epic early novel American Gods. In casting Neil as the omnipotent narrator Wadsworth echoes the adoration in which he is held by his fans; an ardent fervour usually associated with rock stars, not those who sit atop the New York Times bestseller list.

Accompanying this, Wadsworth’s portrait The Book of Neil Gaiman is a life-size rendering of the author’s head suspended in layers of sun-bleached wax, crafted upon a piece of prehistoric bog oak which lay forgotten within the cold dark earth for thousands of years. The double-sided portrait, of both the front and back of his head, is manifested within the form of something almost book shaped. It is a piece which seems both ancient relic and other worldly. Indeed, time is contained and condensed within this dark, dense tome which will never open.

As a response to the Black Lives Matter movement, the Dean of St Albans Cathedral, Dr Jeffrey John, requested a fine art print copy of Wadsworth’s A Last Supper be hung in the Altar of the Persecuted in the North Transept. Inspired by this important gesture, Lorna has decided to offer to make further high-quality print copies of the painting – purely on a cost price basis - for other churches and religious organisations.

Wadsworth forged her career and reputation with a series of celebrated representations of sitters from the worlds of politics, entertainment and literature, but it is her 2009 depiction of the last supper, with Christ as a black man, that has most recently achieved iconic status. 

The original version of the 12-foot-long oil on aluminium reworking of Leonardo’s Last Supper currently hangs in St George’s Church in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire. It was painted entirely from life with Jesus represented by Jamaican-born fashion model, Tafari Hinds.

When he saw it, not long after it was first painted, Dr Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury commented that Wadsworth’s Last Supper had “tremendous vitality, but also a really powerful tension between the agitation of some figures and the profound stillness and presence of others. All the faces repay long looking.”

In 2019, the painting made national news, when the artist discovered it had been shot whilst supervising the scanning, while in situ behind the altar of St. George’s. The damage occurred on Christ’s right side, the same place that Longinus, a Roman centurion, pierced the body of Jesus with his spear as he hung from the cross. 

She says: “The underlying narrative of my work is the female gaze. Throughout art history we have viewed figurative painting though the eyes and ideals of men. I seek to challenge this orthodoxy and in my Last Supper I offered a fresh interpretation by using beautiful models as the disciples. I also wanted to question the western myth that Jesus had fair hair and blue eyes by casting him as black, which in my view, is just as 'accurate' as the received idea that he looked like a Florentine. 

“When the work was loaned for my recent retrospective exhibition GAZE at the Graves Gallery in Sheffield, I took the opportunity for the work to be scanned. This means the altarpiece can now be printed at scale and installed in any church around the world.

“I accepted the commission on the condition that I had total artistic control. This inverted the usual power dynamic that usually occurs between commissioner and artist, whereby the commissioner hires an artist to paint an image of their choosing. I did the painting for expenses only, as a trade-off for having the power of portrayal. It therefore only seems right to offer prints of this painting at cost to any church who would like one. Challenging the visual orthodoxy that has historically made so many feel excluded is one way that, as a society, we can begin to heal.”

Although the original painting’s dimensions are 107 x 366 cm, Wadsworth says that she will happily make different sized versions depending on available space and, indeed, budgets. 

A LAST SUPPER: DRAWING AN ALTARPIECE

Sheffield Cathedral`
Church St
Sheffield
S1 1HA

To coincide with GAZE, Wadsworth’s homecoming retrospective exhibition spanning her 25 year career, the 12ft charcoal preparatory drawing created for her A Last Supper has been installed in Sheffield Cathedral’s Chapel of The Holy Spirit.

A Last Supper: Drawing an Altarpiece will be in the Cathedral from Nov 2019 indefinitely.

Portraits and religious themes

Her Graves Gallery show GAZE included 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 featured 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 culminated 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 Hinds.