Simon Verity

Simon Verity
Born	(1945-07-01)1 July 1945 Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England
Died	11 August 2024(2024-08-11) (aged 79) Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, Wales
Education	Marlborough College
Occupations	Sculptor stonecarver letter cutter
Spouses	Judith Mills ​ ​ (m. 1970, divorced)​ Martha Finney ​ (m. 2013)​
Children	3
Father	Terence Verity

Simon Verity (1 July 1945 – 11 August 2024) was a British sculptor, master stonecarver and letter cutter. Much of his work is garden sculpture and figure sculpture in cathedrals and major churches.^[1] His works are in the private collections of King Charles III, Sir Elton John and Lord Rothschild.^[2]

Background

Verity was born in Amersham in 1945, the son of Terence Verity, an architect and art designer, and his wife Enid, née Hill, artist, designer and colour theorist.^[3][4] Following his education at Marlborough College, he received his training through an informal apprenticeship to his great-uncle, Oliver Hill, at Daneway House,^[5] and under the conservationist Professor Robert Baker's teaching at Wells Cathedral.^[1]

Career

Verity's early work includes inscriptions and small printed editions of concrete poetry in collaboration with Sylvester Houédard, produced in his studio at Daneway.^[6][7] Having established his own studio at Rodbourne, St Paul Malmesbury Without, he made notable contributions of figure sculpture and fountains to local Cotswold gardens, including Barnsley House, Kiftsgate Court and Batsford Arboretum.

A 1988 memorial by Verity for the writer Sophie Behrens was the catalyst for the creation of Memorials by Artists, an organization dedicated to the creation of unique memorials.^[8][9]

From the mid-1980s, Verity worked with a small team of colleagues, including Diana Reynell, Belinda Eade and his own family, on the restoration of a group of historic grottoes, including those at Marlborough Mound (1982–86), Painshill Park (1987–89), Goldney House (1984),^[10] Hampton Court House (1986–89) and Walton Hall Bath House (1987–91).^[11][12] He subsequently created new grottoes at Leeds Castle (1989),^[13] and in the United States, England, Greece and Italy.

Verity acquired from the Nicholson family of gin distillers the Hartham Park or Pickwick underground quarry of Bath stone, at Box Hill, near Corsham, originally opened in the 1840s, which he sold in 1989.^[14][15]

Settling in the United States about 1988, Verity worked as director on the carving of the west portal of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York (also known as the Portal of Paradise) from 1988 until 1997. At the start, Verity was assisted by six apprentices. In 1993, Jean-Claude Marchionni, a master stonecarver from France, joined Verity in the project.^[16] A procession of 32 matriarchs and patriarchs from the Old and New Testaments were carved from blocks of limestone already in place.^[17]

In 2004, Verity was commissioned to design and build a hand-carved map of the United Kingdom to form the paving for the British Memorial Garden in New York's Hanover Square. The Garden commemorates the 67 British victims of the 11 September 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. The map features all the counties of Great Britain, as well as the boroughs of London and British Islands and protectorates. The map is carved from grey flagstone from Caithness and sandstone from Moray, Scotland.^[2]

Verity participated in a programme of artist's residencies, lectures and demonstrations in the United States. In January 2015, he visited Duke University for a 10-day residency during which he recreated the Head of a virtue, a 1245 sculpture from Notre-Dame Cathedral that is now in the collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke.^[18]

Verity's writings include memoirs of his apprenticeship with Oliver Hill^[19][20] and The Library of Libraries (2013), a satirical illustrated polemic inspired by the campaign to preserve the stacks in the main branch of the New York Public Library.^[21][22][23]

Personal life and death

In 1970, Verity married Judith Mills; they had three children and later divorced.^[4][24] In 2013, he married Martha Becker Finney.^[4]

Verity died from Lewy body dementia at his home in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, Wales, on 11 August 2024, at the age of 79.^[4][25]

Works

Other works include:

• Portland stone carved baptismal font at Clifton Cathedral, Bristol (1973)^[26]
• Figures in niches on the tower of St Mary's Church, Purton, Wiltshire (1973)^[27]
• A demi-angel with lute (south side) and (in the gable apex) a nude figure of St Peter with net and keys, both on the image screen at Exeter Cathedral (commissioned 1984)^[28]
• A seated king in niche 199 of the West Front at Wells Cathedral (1980/81)^[29]
• A seated nude and mother and child at Kiftsgate Court, Gloucestershire^[30]
• A fountain, lady in a hunting habit and other works at Barnsley House, Gloucestershire^[1]
• A grotto at Leeds Castle, Kent^[1]
• Lettering for the entrance to the Henry Cole Wing of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1983)^[1]
• A plaque in The V&A Temple at The Laskett, Herefordshire, for Sir Roy Strong (1988)^[31] and a medallion to celebrate Sir Roy’s retirement after 14 years as Director of the V&A Museum (1987).^[32]
• Tombstones and memorials for many distinguished personages, including Sir John Betjeman; Lady Diana Cooper; Edmund Blunden; Nancy Mitford; Henry Somerset, 10th Duke of Beaufort; Lynne Redgrave; Rachel Kempson; Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel; Allan Gwynne-Jones; Anne Parsons, Countess of Rosse, and her husband Michael Parsons, 6th Earl of Rosse; Sir Algar Henry Stafford Howard; Linetta de Castelvecchio Richardson; James Pope-Hennessy; Frank Russell Barry, Bishop of Southwell; Rosemary Verey; Susana, Lady Walton and George Wein.^[33]
• Retrospective memorials to famous historical figures, including a tablet to Bishop Lancelot Andrewes (1994/5) in the chancel of Winchester Cathedral^[34] and a floor inscription to mark the former position of the shrine of St Thomas Becket in the Trinity Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral.^[35]
• Four life-size classical figure statues of the seasons for the roof pediments at Henbury Hall, Cheshire (about 1986)^[36]
• Figure of Spring, terms and inscription at Llowes Court, Glasbury, Powys^[37]
• Figure of Aphrodite at Woodside, Old Windsor, Berkshire^[38]
• La Bocca fountain, bas reliefs, statue of Aphrodite and garden features at La Mortella, Ischia^[39][40]
• A grotto at Woody House in East Hampton, New York^[41]
• Grotto at estate in Fort Worth, Texas (1989)
• Grotto at Agnitsini, Corfu
• The Guardian, sculpture in memory of Princess Catherine Galitzine Campbell (died 1988) in the Chicago Botanic Garden (1992)^[42]
• Fountains, sundial and inscriptions at the American Academy in Rome (1996)^[43]
• Orpheus fountain in memory of Jane Blaffer Owen (died 2010) at The Cathedral Labyrinth (a replica of the Chartres Cathedral labyrinth), New Harmony, Indiana^[44]
• The Gorgeous Mosaic, a panel at Bellevue Hospital, NYC (1991)^[45]
• Labrum fountain, Leon Levy and Shelby White Court, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (opened 2007)^[46]
• Three replacement figure sculptures after the drawings of Ninian Comper for The Leslie Lindsey Memorial Chapel, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Boston, USA (installed 2017)^[47]

References

1. "Simon Verity". University of Warwick Art. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
2. Ross, David (8 November 2004). "How to pave from Caithness to New York City". The Herald. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
3. See Enid Verity, Colour, with foreword by John Piper, Frewin, 1967
4. Sandomir, Richard (1 September 2024). "Simon Verity, World-Renowned Stone Carver, Is Dead at 79". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
5. 'A young craftsman at Daneway House', Matrix, no. 35, Summer 2018, 1–8
6. Rock Sand Tide, Daneway/Openings, 1964
7. Alan Powers, ‘Simon Verity, Peculiar Printer’, Matrix: A Review for Printers & Bibliophiles, Number 10, winter 1990
8. "Memorials by Artists, Suffolk, UK" (PDF). Dan Bellan. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
9. Hilary Lees, Exploring English Churchyard Memorials, 2002, page 83
10. County Life, vol. 180, 1957
11. Richard Barber, The Marlborough Mound: Prehistoric Mound, Medieval Castle, 2022, p. 125
12. Dr Gerald Hull and Margaret Hull, Conchinilia Journey I; Conchinilia Journey II; and Half-Forgotten on shell houses and grottoes.
13. Trucco, Terry (18 August 1988). "A Stone Carver Finds His Niche in Grottoes Old and New". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
14. FORSTER, A., HOBBS, P.R.N., MONKHOUSE, R.A. and WYATT, R.J., Environmental Geology Study: Parts of West Wiltshire and South-east Avon (Keyworth: British Geology Survey, 1985), p. 133
15. https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/510143/1/WAVG85008_incomplete.pdf
16. "Portal Project Introduction". Photo Arts. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
17. "The Portal of Paradise". Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York. Archived from the original on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
18. "Simon Verity returning to Duke". Wired! Lab. Duke University. Retrieved 3 September 2018.
19. 'A young craftsman at Daneway House', Matrix, no. 35, Summer 2018, 1−8
20. 'Addendum: a patchwork...after 50 years', privately printed, n.d.
21. The Library of Libraries, New York: Committee to Save the New York Public Library, 2013
22. "Institute of Classical Architecture & Art".
23. Verity, Simon (2 February 2024). The Library of Libraries. Committee to Save the New York Public Library. ISBN 978-0-615-98168-0.
24. "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 2 September 2024.
25. "Simon Verity, master sculptor who added to Gothic cathedrals and revived the rococo art of grottoes – obituary". The Telegraph. 28 August 2024. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
26. Historic England. "Cathedral Church of SS Peter and Paul, City of Bristol (1271209)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
27. Orbach, Julian; Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (2021). Wiltshire. The Buildings Of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. p. 516. ISBN 978-0-300-25120-3. OCLC 1201298091.
28. "Angel with Lute". Black Dog of Wells. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
29. Jerry Sampson, Wells Cathedral West Front: Construction, Sculpture and Conservation, 1998, p. 228
30. "Rose Border". Kiftsgate Court. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
31. "The V&A Temple".
32. Gill, Brendan (22 January 1990). "Stone Carver". The New Yorker. Retrieved 4 September 2018.
33. Gill, Brendan (22 January 1990). "Stone Carver". The New Yorker. Retrieved 4 September 2018.
34. "John Harmar (C1555–1613) – Literary Winchester".
35. David S. Neal, Warwick Rodwell, Canterbury Cathedral, Trinity Chapel: The Archaeology of the Mosaic Pavement and Setting of the Shrine of St Thomas Becket, 2022, p. 368
36. "Carl Laubin HENBURY HALL, CHESHIRE, 2006" (PDF). Retrieved 26 September 2023.
37. "Llowes Court, Glasbury, Powys".
38. "Elton John's gardens with Rosemary Verey". YouTube. Retrieved 10 December 2023.
39. "Temple of the Sun". Retrieved 26 September 2023.
40. Walton, Susana. La Mortella: An Italian Garden Paradise, New Holland Publishers (2002)
41. "Woody House − East Hampton, New York". Ryan Gainey. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
42. "Sculpture at the Garden". Chicago Botanic Garden. Archived from the original on 10 July 2010. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
43. "Rebuilding the Gardens of the American Academy in Rome". Garden Design. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
44. "The Cathedral Labyrinth at New Harmony, Indiana". Blakley's. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
45. "The Gorgeous Mosaic". New York City. Retrieved 5 July 2010.
46. 'Redesigning the Met’s Home for Greek and Roman Art', New York Times, Robin Pogrebin, 18 April 2007
47. "Lindsey Chapel altar screen restored". 6 March 2021. Retrieved 6 October 2023.

External links

• The Portal Project Martha Cooper exhibit of the St John the Divine project.
• The Portal of Paradise City Lore NYC article on Verity's work at St John The Divine (1998)
• Simon Verity's "Seated Nude" at Kiftsgate Court, Cotswolds photos
• Cathedral of St. John the Divine photo of the Portal of Paradise.
• QuickTime panoramic portrait of Simon Verity at work on the paving for the British Memorial Garden. Photographed by Jonathan Greet
• Stone Carver in the 22 January 1990 issue of The New Yorker. (paywall)