Artworks by the London-based artist form a key part of display presenting more inclusive images of Christ  

Four paintings, including one never before seen in public, by the renowned portrait artist Lorna May Wadsworth will go on display as part of ground-breaking new exhibition at Chester Cathedral, opening on 25 September and running until 30 October. 

Global Images of Christ: Challenging Perceptions features over 50 paintings - including pieces by Wadsworth, Mark Cazalet and Peter Eugene Ball, along with African and Chinese sculptures, plus Orthodox icons - and aims to challenge the Western depiction of Jesus Christ and his followers.   

Many of the works have been collected from churches across the UK by Chester Cathedral’s Canon Precentor, Jeremy Dussek and curated by the Art and Design Department of the University of Chester. 

Forming the centrepiece of the exhibition is Wadsworth’s famous depiction of the Last Supper (A Last Supper, 2009) – showing the shocking moment when Jesus predicts that the apostle Peter will deny knowing him three times before dawn – with Jesus portrayed as a black man in the 12-foot-long oil on aluminium. Lorna based her composition on Leonardo da Vinci’s 15th-century mural in the refectory of Santa Maria della Grazie, in Milan.  

For her interpretation, Lorna chose the Jamaican-born fashion model, Tafari Hinds, as Christ. Explaining why she depicted Jesus as a black man, Wadsworth said: “Painting the Last Supper altarpiece made me really think about how we are accustomed to seeing Jesus portrayed. Experts agree he would most likely have had Middle Eastern features, yet for centuries European artists have traditionally painted Christ in their own image. I cast Tafari as my Jesus to make people question the Western myth that he had fair hair and blue eyes. My portrayal of him is just as ‘accurate’ as the received idea that he looked like a Florentine. I also knew that, from a previous portrait of Tafari, there is something in his countenance that people find deeply empathetic and moving, which is the overriding quality I wanted my Christ to embody.” 

Diocesan Inclusion Officer, the Revd Vanessa Layfield says: "The Last Supper image of a black Christ may be shocking to some, but why? One might argue that an image of a white Christ is just as dishonest as an image of a black Christ, for Christ was neither black nor white, but a brown Middle Eastern Jew. 

"The exhibition helps us to reconsider our unconscious bias and our assumptions about others and in so doing will help us create a more inclusive Church." 

In addition to A Last Supper, visitors to the Cathedral will also have the chance to see a new work by Lorna, Blue Christ (2021). The sitter for this arresting painting of Christ crowned with gold thorns was the fashion model, Jamel Gordon-Lynch. Again, echoing the influence of Renaissance masters on her work, Lorna painted Blue Christ as a tondo, or circular portrait. The vivid pigment used for the background is a bespoke International Blue Klein paint, first created by the French artist Yves Klein, that Wadsworth had created especially for this painting.  

Gordon-Lynch also sat for Pink Christ (2011) and Kiss of Betrayal (2015) which also form part of the exhibition. Both paintings challenge the normal convention of how Jesus and his disciples are traditionally portrayed in the canon of western art. 

Lorna May Wadsworth: “I’m thrilled that Chester cathedral has put together an exhibition of inclusive representations of Christ. This show embodies everything I wanted to convey when I embarked on my Last Supper altarpiece for St George’s Nailsworth parish church 12 years ago.” 

The exhibition is a collaborative venture by Chester Cathedral, the University of Chester and the Diocese of Chester and represents a desire by all to promote equality and diversity in a community partnership. 

Global Images of Christ: Challenging Perceptions is open Monday – Saturday 10am – 6pm, Sunday 12 Noon – 5pm from Saturday 25 September to Saturday 30 October. Entry is free and donations are welcome. More at chestercathedral.com  

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.