john piper

John Piper was a major contributor to the 1930’s abstract painting movement with compositions of tilting planes, arranged like flats in a stage set. In 1942 he published British Romantic Artists showing the survival of William Blake and Palmers Romanticism in a sequence of British artists including himself. Always interested in Old buildings during the Second World War he was commissioned by the government to chronicle the devastation to British cities by the German Bombing raids.
His work remained Romantic in every sense, sometimes more topographical at times extravagantly theatrical. He worked in varying media for different occasions, including stained glass, stage design, tapestries and book illustrations as well as painting in oils and watercolours.