The incredible story behind Graham Sutherland s Christ in Glory GOLDMARK YouTube

...over Coventry. The bomber is releasing the first bombs. The first effect can already be seen below. ...the only night over Coventry. Leading American newspapers wrote that Coventry had been razed to the ground. The Queen talked with Sir Basil Spence, the architect. The superb baptistry window is by John Piper. Graham Sutherland designed the 75-foot-high tapestry of the East Wall. One of its chief embellishments was made in France. In the village of Felatin, near Aubusson, work had started making a great tapestry of Christ in glory, designed by Graham Sutherland. When finished, the tapestry would be the largest in the world. It is vast. It's the size of a tennis court. It was the largest tapestry in the world when it was created. More than a hundred different shades of colour were included in the artist's design. The skeins of wool were soaked in vats and hung on racks to dry. After the dyeing, the skeins of wool were wound onto bobbins. Sometimes threads of different colours were wound together to make particular textures and tones. Let's make our way downstairs. We've looked at getting the organisation designated as a national portfolio organisation, but designating our collection as a mid-20th century collection of national importance. This is Graham Sutherland's design for the tapestry. While work went on, it stood near the looms so that the weavers could match the colours. The chalice in the middle is actually painted on fabric, which has been stuck on. As I got closer to it with Louise Vale, that was the moment when I thought, oh my gosh, this is nothing like as straightforward as I thought at first. Because I had always assumed it was just a straightforward painting onto board. But actually, there's quite a lot of collage going on in there. I think as Sutherland amended the design, I think that that's what he did. He just painted a bit different and stuck it on. I think that's what's going on. What happened was that in 2012, for the Golden Jubilee exhibition, where we had the first two versions of the cartoon in the Herbert Art Gallery next door. They brought them and we were going to exhibit this one next to them. But as they started to unscrew it, they just felt it begin to move a little bit and they took fright and put it back. That actually informed what I then thought about this. I thought, actually, I want to have some conservators on hand so that as we were beginning to move it, we've got an idea of what it is that we're trying to do. Have you taken stuff like this off walls before? No. Okay. Just lift it, see what the weight's like first. Just lift it? And we're going to let it slide down. Everyone okay? Yeah. Everyone watch your fingers. Watch your window. Fingers, Jake. Woo! Where's your back? Oh, look. So it's got a little sticker on the back for the Tate Gallery. So has it been on exhibition at the Tate? Woo! I can see what's happened there. You can see, if you look really easy. It's cardboard, isn't it? Well, I think it looked like it was cardboard, I think, isn't it? Maybe. I mean, is that actually the back of the painting? Was it painted on cardboard? Yeah, I think it's on that. Yeah. Because that sort of goes very fibrous. Yeah, it's got fibrous edges. I think it's sort of a strawboard, isn't it? This is not long-lasting material, really, is it? So we need to replace it as best we can. We need to replace how much of this with conservation material. I used to watch all that. That's patch, isn't it, I think. It's like a laid-on collage, a bit of a collage. In fact, I wonder if that is a whole section of paper there. Yeah, that's a collage, isn't it? Yeah. It's because he didn't know what he was doing. He's changing his mind. Oh, that moved. Yeah, it's loose this end as well. That's interesting, isn't it? You can see it kind of looks like loft. It's not the most brilliant construction for the next hundred years. Or is it a glaze on top of? It's got quite a sheen, hasn't it? Yeah. I can't see anything worth conserving. I mean, the principle is fine in terms of how it looks. Do you know that whole thing is a disk of paper, I think, isn't it, on top, laid on? Yes. What are those? I mean, is that like a wall block? What's in the middle one? That's pencil, isn't it? It looks like it. Yeah, very interesting. It's like there's an underdrawing. Yeah. And in here. Yeah. So we're going to go back and we're going to have to… The whole thing's underdrawn, actually. Yeah. There's a grid, isn't there? There's a grid, yeah. There's a number, look. Cool, exciting. Ease it down, that's it. Oh my God, look at the colours now. It's amazing. Wow, it's fantastic. Yeah. What do you think about that drawing? Because, I mean, that's the bit, in a way, visually, that's the biggest problem. The worst bit, yeah, it is. I think it's probably due to changes in humidity, it's swelled a bit. So it's slightly puffed up and proud. And now, of course, yeah. It's very hard to set that in one place because, you know, it's just hovering. It's interesting, all this pencil underdrawing, fantastic. Is this done with your intention? Writing here. It looks like it's carved in. But whoever handled it before was not as careful as we've been because there are… The screw holes are one thing and they may want to preserve those, but on the other hand, these are scratches. Scuffing, yeah. This is scuffing by someone who didn't handle it properly. Cool, amazing. 2, 2, 2, 0, is it roughly? 2, 2, 9, 9. Oh, no good, I'm glad you're measuring it. I'm so dyslexic, I just can't add up. I have to do it in two and then times it by two. Staple. Somebody's put a staple in there. Yes. Oh, yes. That looks like the middle of a roll plug. Yes. There's various holes as well, like nail holes. Can you see those? Yes, I can actually. I was wondering also if anybody had retouched anything because it's lost this upper layer. We thought it looked quite, you know, it's got these losses and there's a red line there that's disappeared and it would have gone across there. And in that kind of raking light, you can see these losses. If I had to value this for insurance, I'd probably put a million pounds on it. It's kind of William Blakey, isn't it, some of these? That's true. You can see the texture in it now, can't you? It's like a shadow behind that altar almost, isn't it, his feet? Yeah, really vibrant. It's nice to see that green. It's quite red. My name's Louise Drover and this is Agaliki Kostaki and we're both paper conservators. We've worked together for probably 20 years. We've been working on this around about three days in total. Our process here has been firstly to surface clean, make sure there's no loose dirt on the surface or deposits that shouldn't be there really. And then the next stage was to treat the centre crease here, which was quite raised. And basically this is a board that's made up of many laminates and those areas have to be consolidated. So sort of pressed back down really to form a single layer rather than lots of lifting layers. So we consolidated it with a wheat starch paste and put it under quite a lot of pressure. There are, throughout the middle here, there's a number of nails which fasten these two boards that Sutherland painted on. They fasten it down to the strainer below. So we, in some areas throughout the middle, we've lifted and we've put in a couple of brass nails which won't corrode, but they're beneath the actual upper paper layer and then the paper layer's been reattached and pressed for three to four days actually over the weekend. I think our biggest obstacle is probably to keep all the integrity that Sutherland sort of intended really and to not over-retouch or over-restore it and really just to bring together losses as opposed to kind of put too much of our recreation into anything. So it's really just distracting the eye when it comes to retouching. You know, it's just finishing a line or adding a tone really and it's enough. It's just knowing when to stop really. Less is more. What we've got to be careful of is, like, this one is obviously his brush has run out of pigment and then bits like this are probably losses. They are, yeah. Whatever we do is reversible anyway, so I think if you've brought some of those together that are clearly losses, then we're not doing anything detrimental really. It's probably the most expensive picture I've ever worked on, being what it's valued at. I'm Luke Nixon and I'm the head of gilding in the framing workshop. I also deal with all the special finishes like we have here on the Sutherland frame. It's been about three days' worth of work. Everything's had to be cut and measured by hand because it's a little bit too big for our machines, being about 2.5 metres long. I've had to cut all the frame by hand and then underpin it from the bottom and nail in all the sides so it's nice and secure. I've also had to build this big subframe inside to take away a lot of the weight from the Sutherland because it's quite heavy. And then I've also had to build this little slip on the inside to also cover the front of the acrylic. So we're all nice and protected. So it's taken about three days overall with glue drying and stuff as well. So it's been a big job. So there's a lot of pressure that goes with it as well, obviously handling such an expensive piece of art. It's always in the back of your mind but you're just trying to, I'd say, block it out. Yeah, there's always that worry. Again, especially with an image that's so expensive. We work on quite a lot of Sutherland stuff here, to be honest. Tomorrow we will be framing the Sutherland cartoon. It will be very exciting, especially once it's obviously out there to the public and stuff, knowing that, you know, your name's in a bit of history, really. And you've worked on something that's probably going to sit there for the next, you know, hundred-odd years. This is covered in holes and they're partly from the textile weavers. And obviously a grid was drawn all over it with graphite and it's been squared up. But there are some other holes which are to do with past hanging, perhaps when the weavers were creating the grid for it. And they've made these great big holes with raw plugs stuck in them. So those have been taken out at some stage, probably to frame it. And we filled those with an acrylic fill material and then we've put paper on the very top, just a handmade paper, to take our painted surface. And we're now at the stage, really, of retouching these fill areas. And I think that will just bring it back together. There's also a series of onlays. Whether Sutherland decided to paint these areas and then attach them, or he'd already painted them and they weren't quite right, so he's adjusted perhaps his design and reattached a new onlay of paper with the design on. But a lot of these onlays had lifted, the edges had come up. There's also onlays of paper around Christ's shoulders and this bird also lifted areas. And this whole actual central oval is an onlay of paper. And many of those edges were lifting as well, so they've been reattached. This is really the closing stages of this and it's a case of mixing up the paint as you go. You have to just build it up, put down a mid-green and then some areas are quite bluey, some areas are quite yellowy and just distract the eye, really, from the damage. Put the tone back in and I think it will bring it back really well together. Well, it can be easy to get carried away. All these lovely colours. And I always think that in-painting is the nicest part, really. It's the final journey, really, to bringing it back together and seeing it as finished. So it's just knowing where to stop that. You know, his brushstrokes are quite free. Even though there are lines ruled and I think we don't want to be too sort of precise, filling in whole areas of colour and flooding an area, but just applying it in these dots that we do. That's sort of intentionally done, really. I think that's kind of everything, isn't it? Yes, it looks very nice. Brilliant. Good team. I think it comes together very nicely now. What a privilege to work on something like this. It's such a unique item. Yeah. No second of this. No. And a massive reference for the textile as well. If anything changes on the actual textile, you know, for people to look back at this. It's incredible, really. Yes. Completely unique. So it's a huge privilege to work on it.