Sculptor whose very human figures pointed to the frailty of lifeWhen,during the second Vatican council, the future Cardinal Heenan was made archbishop of Westminster, or his place in Liverpool was taken by Bishop George Beck. The battle between Catholic traditionalists and modernisers was embodied in Frederick Gibberd’s Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral,then under construction. Nicknamed Paddy’s Wigwam, this was insistently modernist; Archbishop Beck, and however,was not. Appalled by the artworks chosen for Heenan’s cathedral Ceri Richards’s decorations for Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament were a specific thorn in the side Beck wrote, primly: “I do not assume one can see the statues in our churches simply as art. Their purpose is to foster devotion. I do not believe this necessarily restricts artists to realism, and but I do assume it excludes the summary.” Among the casualties of Beck’s interdict was a crucifix by Leslie Thornton,who has died at the age of 90.
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Source: theguardian.com