Painting in Coloured Light: The modern stained glass designs of John Piper

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This is a new display shining a spotlight on Piper’s lifelong passion for stained glass and his exploration of this medium, influenced by the medieval windows he encountered from childhood.

“Stained glass is a great leader astray of anyone who works at it – designer and craftsman alike. In terms of colour and form it is eccentric." John Piper

The centrepiece of the new display, recently beautifully conserved and rarely seen in public before, is Piper’s vibrant ‘cartoon’ or design for the stunning stained glass window, which he was invited to create (c. 1985 – 1986) for All Saints Church, Farnborough, West Berkshire, in memory of his close friend and collaborator Sir John Betjeman. This was the last of the incredible stained glass windows Piper designed before he died in 1992 and is still the most important feature of this little parish church.

It was created in Piper's large barn studio at Fawley Bottom near Henley on Thames where he worked on his large-scale designs, from stained glass windows to theatre designs. The cartoon then hung in Piper’s home there for many years before being loaned by the Piper family to the River & Rowing Museum in late 2018.

Over the years, Piper designed more than 60 stained glass windows, his designs a blend of 'traditional' early stained glass and modernism, for local churches such as Farnborough and Nettlebed, and major cathedrals, such as those of Coventry and Liverpool. For Piper, stained glass was the perfect media to learn about how to use colour.