The Lettercarving of Ralph Beyer
23/04/2018
[18/13]
The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street
The Lettercarving of Ralph Beyer - Monday 23rd April 2018
The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street, London EC1M 6EJ 6.30pm to 8pm
Lecture by John Neilson
Description: Ralph Beyer (1921-2008) was an inscriptional carver best known for his huge ‘Tablets of the Word’ in Basil Spence’s Coventry Cathedral, which provoked admiration and criticism in equal measure when they were carved in 1961. Beyer was probably the first lettercarver in twentieth-century Britain to deliberately depart from formal regularity. His approach owed much to his background: a childhood in Weimar Germany, then exile from the Nazis to Eric Gill’s workshop in the Chilterns, and later associations with Henry Moore and Nikolaus Pevsner. John Neilson’s talk will look at some of Beyer’s work in churches and cathedrals, and examine what made him work the way he did.
John Neilson has worked as a lettercarver and lettering designer since 1991 and has made a number of large public inscriptions. For the past fifteen years he has been editor of the lettering journal Forum, published by Letter Exchange. He is working on a book about the work of Ralph Beyer.
Lectures on Wednesday 4th April and Monday 23rd April are jointly presented by The Twentieth Century Society and Art and Christianity
Members price £9.00 (C20/ACE) Non Members £13.00
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