Born: 1903. Died: 1992. Nationality: British.

John Piper was articled as a clerk in his father's firm of solicitors. At the age of twenty-five he attended Richmond and Kingston Schools of Art, followed by the Royal College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. In 1933 he went to Paris where he met Braque, Léger, and Brancusi. On his return he became involved in the magazine Axis and started work as a constructivist sculptor, exhibiting with the Seven and Five. However, his architectural interests became firmly topographical. In 1938 he produced the Shell Guide to Oxfordshire with John Betjeman and Brighton Aquatints the following year. In 1941 the Queen commissioned him to draw Windsor and he was employed as an Official War Artist. He designed scenery and costumes, most notably for Benjamin Britten, from The Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne, 1964 to Death in Venice in 1973. He has executed commissions for stained glass, the Baptistry Window, Coventry Cathedral (1957-62), and Llandaff Cathedrals, and tapestries, Chichester Cathedral (1965-66). Three times a Trustee of the Tate Gallery, his retrospective exhibition was held there in 1983.

	Coventry Cathedral, 15 November 1940
	Chateau De Taillebourg
	Ettington Park