Painter, printmaker, stage designer, stained glass designer, writer

Biography

1903 Born in Epsom, Surrey

1921-6 Studied law in father's office and wrote poetry

1926-8 Studied at Richmond School of Art under Raymond Coxon

1927 Met Henry Moore through Coxon

1927-9 Studied at the Royal College of Art; studied painting under Morris Kestelman and stained glass and lithography under Francis Spear

1930' Though he mixed with the avant-garde in England and Paris, in the late 1930's he abandoned abstract art for a romantic portrayal of buildings and places, at a time when England's architectural heritage was under threat

1933 Met Braque, who encouraged him to experiment with collage

1934 Elected member of 7 & 5 Society and shortly thereafter became the Secretary; met English painter Myfanwy Evans, who became his wife in 1937 and his collaborator in his later stage work

1934-6 Abstract paintings

1935 Collaborated with Myfanwy Evans on the magazine Axis; visited the studios of Brancusi, Arp and Jean Hélion in Paris and Alexander Calder in Varengeville

1940-43 During the war, he painted the after-effects of the Baedeker raids, as well as a series of paintings based on Renishaw, the Sitwell family home, which were used as illustrations in Osbert Sitwell's autobiography; first designs for operas and ballets for Sadler's Wells and the Old Vic

1946 Founder member of British Opera Group for which he designed most of the sets

Founding member of the English Opera Group and designed most of Benjamin Britten's operas until 'Death in Venice' in 1973

1950' Began working with stained glass

1958 Painted in France for the first time , although he had visited on many previous occasions

1960' Returned to an abstract landscape style of painting, based often on a black ground with dull colours in depth and small accents of surface colour

1969 Met potter Geoffrey Eastop, who set up a pottery next to Piper's house. They worked both independently and collaboratively: Piper designed and decorated plates, jug, vases and obelisks

1992 Died in Henley-on-Thames

Bibliography

1944 Illustrated poetry anthology by John Betjeman and Geoffrey Taylor, Scottish and Welsh Landscape

1953 John Piper: Retrospective Exhibition, Arts Council, Cambridge

1964 Published a portfolio of 24 lithographs as a Retrospective of Churches

1967 John Piper Retrospective, Ulster Museum, Belfast

1968 Published booklet, Stained Glass, Art or Anti-Art

1980 John Piper, Tate Gallery, London

1983 Piper's Places; John Piper in England and Wales, Richard Ingram and John Piper, Chatto and Windus, London

1992 John Piper, David Fraser Jenkins, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University

Selected Solo Exhibitions

1972 Piper's ceramics first exhibited alongside his paintings at Marlborough Fine Art, London

1983 Retrospective at Tate Gallery, London

Selected Group Exhibitions

1931-33 Showed annually in exhibitions of the London Group in the Burlington Galleries, London

1934 Included in 13th annual exhibition of 7 & 5 Society at Leicester Galleries, London

1941 Sketches of Windsor Castle were exhibited in the National Gallery in a show entitled, Recording Britain. They were described by Eric Newton, as 'the grandest drawings in the show'

1977 Victorian Dream Palaces, Marlborough Fine Art, London

Public commissions

1941 Received commission from the Queen to record Windsor Castle. Twenty six watercolours were completed

1944 Commissioned to make a group of lithographs for Hans Juda's magazine, International Textiles for an article entitled, The Colour of English Country Houses

1957 Received major commission to make stained glass for huge baptistery window in Sir Basil Spence's new Coventry Cathedral, which was damaged by the war.

1961 Designed chapel and glass for Nuffield Chapel