Sister Wendy Beckett: An appreciation of Leonard McComb's work

Sister Wendy Beckett, the internationally-renowned British religious sister and art historian, was a big fan of Leonard McComb’s work and over the years showed her appreciation of his work.

Beckett presented a series of documentaries for the BBC during the 1990s, including Sister Wendy’s Odyssey and Sister Wendy’s Grand Tour. Dressed in a black nun’s habit, she would discuss paintings, without script or autocue.

Talking about Leonard McComb’s Portrait of Artist’s Mother (Delia McComb), she said: “Leonard McComb has painted his mother with affectionate respect. He pays her the compliment of eschewing flattery: she is not young and every detail makes this poignantly clear. This a brave woman, unafraid of the future.

“With true artistic objectivity, McComb enjoys the variety of the marks and the hues that ages has left on her face and hands. No young girl could appear more brightly.”

She also wrote of his Italian Tulips (2000), contrasting it to the famous flower painters of the 17th Century who: “always convey a sense of mortality. In fact their brightness is ominous: the pride of life is destined only for the grave. This great twentieth century painter (McComb) subverts this traditional vanitas under-theme. His tulips exist forever in an upthrust of youthfulness, wholly alive.”

“The overriding impression is of purity, an intrisic whiteness unstained by earthly concerns. As Rowan Williams says: there is no goodness that is not bodily and realistic and local. God is in the truth. But there are different types of truth. McComb shows the tulips are radiating a sort of force field of light.”

Portrait of Artist’s Mother will be on display at Manchester Art Gallery, in McComb’s home town, from next month, along with the Golden Man.