John Piper

Born in 1903, John Piper is one of the most versatile of 20th-century British artists - a virtuoso of pen and brush. He has always had a passion for English architecture, which is reflected in the collection of watercolours and prints acquired from him by his friends the Lewins over a period of some 30 years. The collection consists largely of small drawings from sketchbooks - Piper's equivalent of "Life Drawings" - ranging chronologically from his work as a war artist in the early 1940s through to 1982. They include sketches of Coventry Cathedral, after the bombing in November 1940 (and a study for a stained glass panel in the new Cathedral); of Windsor Castle, commissioned by H.M. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother during 1941-42; sequences in Venice and Rome and later works in watercolour and chalk of Oxford, Harlaxton Manor, Lincolnshire and Arbroath Abbey.