John Pelling

John Pelling (born 1930) is a British artist and clergyman, and is an Associate of the Royal College of Art, known for works on large canvases, abstract works, and paintings of religious imagery.

Personal life Pelling was born in Hove, East Sussex, in 1930, and educated at Brighton Grammar School. He went on to study at the Royal College of Art in London from 1951 to 1955, studying under John Minton and Francis Bacon appearing on the front of popular magazines such as Picturegoer. She appeared on television and in the Dairy Council advertisements as the "drinka pinta milka day" girl. She was previously married to billionaire businessman David Barclay.

Pelling is one of the judges of the annual International Firework Competition in Monte Carlo.

He has worked from studios in Kensington (west London) and Monte Carlo. He currently has a studio in Chelsea.

Church career Ordained in 1959 in the Diocese of Chichester, Pelling served in churches in Kensington and Hammersmith, before moving in 1979 to the south of France. His final ecclesiastical appointment before retirement was as Chaplain to the Anglican Church in Nice, France, and he established a family home in Monte Carlo. appears to show an embryo and an umbilical cord, and the angular designs below the central subject appear to represent the female reproductive organs (female genitalia feature in many of Pelling's works), but the non-abstract intrusion of a monstrance containing the sacramental host clearly points to the subject being the unborn Jesus Christ in his mother's womb.

In addition to these abstract styles, Pelling also paints vividly colourful religious arts, such as his 2002 series of fourteen Stations of the Cross for St Thomas the Apostle Church, Hanwell, whose colourful composition is typical. Pelling has stated that his use of strong primary colours is a reflection of his experience of "the contrasts of parish work [in the Church of England] and its intensity".

Pelling has also undertaken portrait work. His portrait of Graham Greene was the final one commissioned and painted before Greene's death.

Today works by Pelling are included in the royal collections of Monaco and Kuwait; extensive collections of his work may be found in the National Gallery of Modern Art of Poland, at Gdańsk.

Artistic protest Art has been Pelling's primary means of protesting his strongly-held opposition to the ordination of women. It has been observed that this position is in stark contrast to Pelling's love of women generally, and of painting nude female forms in particular. In 1998 Pelling staged an exhibition at the Air Gallery, Dover Street, London, of paintings depicting his opposition to women priests and bishops. Images included naked women draped over church altars, large women with their breasts exposed fighting on the ground for a mitre, a coffin bearing the words 'Church of England', and diminutive male priests on their knees in solemn prayer. The exhibition attracted widespread journalistic attention and was reported in British newspapers ranging from the Daily Mirror, through The Independent, to The Daily Telegraph.