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In her passion for self-denial, she had not seen a movie since 1945, visited a museum or even seen a great painting, only reproductions in books. Known for her witty and eye-opening commentary on art, all made while dressed in her black nun habit, Beckett led a series of documentary programs for the BBC in the 1990s and early 2000s. In the 1980s, Sister Wendy obtained permission from her superiors to start studying art, which she did by combing through books and examining postcard reproductions of famous works. There she lived in a house trailer with only the most basic amenities, working two hours a day. She was 88.[34]. The saints are the people, weak and imperfect like ourselves, who said a total Yes to Gods love. It was a magical moment of television, too. She had also written 15 books on art and religion, and was a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic, featured in articles and mobbed by fans. She died at the Carmelite Monastery in Quidenham at the age of 88. Seen on PBS. Thanks to it, we will be able to sustain and grow the Magazine. Born in South Africa in 1930, she wanted to be a nun as a child, and joined the Sisters of Notre Dame, aged 16. More series followed, including a ten-part documentary that saw Sister Wendy travel to visit artworks in 12 different countries. All rights reserved. When Sister Wendy Beckett took a rare break from her life of solitude to visit an art gallery, the hermetic nun didn't expect to end up a celebrity. Later, as an act of humility, she reclaimed her given name. In Sister Wendys Grand Tour, she wrote: I look forward to the day when it will dawn upon everybody that they can have odysseys and Grand Tours and share the fruits of the world. For all of her unique features as a commentator, it was Becketts ease in describing nude paintings that most confounded her viewers. Cookie Policy To see how comfortably and frankly she handled paintings of nudity, watch this video about BotticellisBirth of Venus and this one about PicassosLes Desmoiselles dAvignon. [3] Sister Wendy. Born in South Africa in 1930, Wendy Beckett received her dual vocations -- God and art -- early in life. ", Close friend Xinran Xue said Beckett's death was "a huge loss for the art world. I guess Im not the only one she was writing to.. In 1999, Beckett visited the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for her series on U.S. museums, called Sister Wendys American Collection. By then, her videos were sold in bookstores and used in art appreciation classes. 4) by Franz Schubert, her chosen book was "an enormous book of logical puzzles", and her luxury item was a "refrigerated tabernacle". Read about our approach to external linking. She had acquired all the star trappings but a wardrobe adviser a publicist, an agent to negotiate fees and contracts, promotional interviews with Charlie Rose and Bill Moyers, and visits with dignitaries like Prime Minister John Major at 10 Downing Street and Pope John Paul II, who commended her for broadcasting a positive image of the church. She was a brilliant art critic.". Her later art-related works include Joy Lasts: On the Spiritual in Art (2006), Real Presence: In Search of the Earliest Icons (2010), and Sister Wendy on the Art of Mary (2013). , An Interview,Sister Wendys American Collection, PBS. She loved Star Trek, horse racing and swigging Baileys: Art-loving Sister Wendy really was a one-off masterpieces, says JANE FRYER. . In 1954 Sister Wendy completed her teaching diploma in Liverpool and returned to South . Afflicted by stress-induced epileptic fits, she returned to England and became a consecrated virgin, moving into a caravan in the grounds of the Carmelite convent at Quidenham, in Norfolk, and working on Latin translation. For the column Prayer for the Week in August 2004, she chose the shortest and most immediate of biblical and other prayers, about which she wrote with a directness that came from discipline both intellectual and spiritual. [7] J. R. R. Tolkien was president of her final examinations board and asked her to stay on at the university, an invitation which she declined. A scene inside the Vatican from Sister Wendys Story of Painting, one of her many BBC series. In 1950 she enrolled at the University of Oxford, graduating (1954) with top honours in English. Smith also drove her around the country to meet the artists when Beckett was writing her book about contemporary women artists. Maintaining her vow of poverty, she donated all her earnings to the Carmelite order. Like Sister Wendy, I believe that art is for everyone. My profound appeal is that hell make it possible for me to live up to it. Sister Wendy began stud. The programs like Sister Wendys Odyssey, Sister Wendys Grand Tour, and Sister Wendys Story of a Painting were immediate hits, often drawing a 25 percent share of the British viewing audience, according to The New York Times. Odyssey was the most successful BBC art program since Kenneth Clarks Civilisation, which aired in the United States 23 years earlier. If you dont know about God, art is the only thing that can set you free., After Sister Wendys appearance in the National Gallery documentary, the Controller of BBC2 rang the films director with the instruction: Give that nun a series.. The impact she had on audiences was so great that she even had a musical written about her. Until she was 61, she had been a model of worldly renunciation: a hermit living in a windowless trailer on the grounds of the Carmelite Monastery in East Anglia, subsisting mainly on skim milk and rarely speaking to anyone. Read about our approach to external linking. Critics pointed to her gapped teeth and her way of pronouncing r as if it were w. Her producers were more impressed by the pithy, ad-lib analyses she could fit neatly into a soundbite, a feat that won her a reputation as one-take Wendy., From the airing of her first series, Sister Wendys Odyssey, in 1992, she evaluated artworks as if the artist were standing beside her. Her father was a bank clerk who later changed careers to be a doctor. Her book Art and the Sacred was published in 1992. According to the Guardians Aamna Mohdin, Sister Wendys father worried that she was too young to make such a commitment, but her mother supported the decision. But her health began to faltershe was epilepticand she was permitted to pursue the life of a hermit near a convent of Carmelite nuns in East Anglia. Alexandra Kiely Still, she was spellbound by art: She read about it voraciously, and began writing about it. Emerging from her hermit-like existence in a caravan at a Carmelite monastery in Norfolk, she hosted unscripted BBC shows from galleries across the world. The series was a hit, and Sister Wendy, a habit-wearing consecrated virgin with a speech impediment, became the most unlikeliest of stars. In the 1990s she became one of the most unlikely television stars. Sister Wendy Beckett, TV art historian, dies at 88. When he finally met her at LACMA, Beal understood. Contemporary Women Artists, published in 1988, was followed by more books and articles. Sister Wendy Beckett (1930 - 2018) was the unlikely star of art history documentary programs on the BBC. Logging in will also give you access to commenting features on our website. It led in turn to an appearance on a TV arts show and eventually to five major series, scripted and presented by one-take-Wendy, as she was known to directors. In 1946, she entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a Roman Catholic congregation of religious sisters dedicated to education. Sister Wendy was well educated, but not in art history. The Carmelite Monastery of Quidenham said Beckett died at the . Whether thats Eve or not, theres a human face there looking straight at Adam with the eyes daring him to respond to the challenge. In the 19th century, Europeans went crazy for one story: Atala, or the Story of Two Lovers in the Desert. She had regular contact with just one other person: the nun who brought her milk and the mail. There was always something contradictory about a nun, who had devoted her life to solitude and contemplation (since 1970 in a caravan in the grounds of the enclosed Carmelite monastery at Quidenham in Norfolk), but who also managed to slip away from the cloister to make large-scale TV series on (in the eyes of the world, if not Sister Wendy herself) non-religious subjects. [2] Besides having received the Carmelite prioress and a nun who brought her provisions, she dedicated her life to solitude and prayer, but allotted two hours of work per day to earn her living. She would get up at 1am, the best time for prayer and contemplation, she said. Yet, while the contradiction could irritate some devout Catholics she was giving, they said, a misleading impression of religious life it was, for most, a key part of her appeal and brought her programmes large audiences. Through this the two became good friends. Subscribe to DailyArt Magazine newsletter, Sister Wendy Beckett, TV art historian, dies at 88, She loved Star Trek, horse racing and swigging Baileys: Art-loving Sister Wendy really was a one-off masterpieces, says JANE FRYER, Remembering Sister Wendy Beckett: beloved Nun, art historian and accidental TV phenomenon, Sister Wendy Beckett: an unlikely star with an inspirational faith in beauty, Sister Wendy Beckett, Nun Who Became a BBC Star, Dies at 88, The Art of Ekphrasis: Shakespeares Lucrece, Atala: The Tragedy that Transcended Pages. She was 88. Sister Wendy Beckett, the cloistered nun who ventured out of seclusion to . She died at the Carmelite Monastery in Quidenham at the age of 88. She died at the Carmelite Monastery in Quidenham at the age of 88. A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials. Sister Wendy Beckett, a Roman Catholic nun who interrupted a cloistered life of prayer in England in 1991 and soared to international stardom with lyrical BBC documentaries that made her one of. Sister Wendy Beckett, the cloistered nun who ventured out of seclusion to become a celebrity art critic and historian, died Wednesday at Englands Carmelite Monastery Quidenham in Norfolk, according to the BBC. Viewers were astonished and delighted, especially by some of her uninhibited expressions of rapture. Schoolchildren ran to her side when they saw her crossing the county museums plaza. Later that year, she advised on coping with a family Christmas. Those who believe in him most are most aware of his non-feelability, as it were. In addition to her work on the small screen, Sister Wendy continued to write art books, including The Story of Painting (1994) and Sister Wendys American Masterpieces (2000). Sister Wendy was great. Sister Wendy Beckett passed away on Boxing Day 2018. She graduated from Oxford University as an honor student in literature in 1954 but taught herself the history of art from the hermits trailer where she lived on the grounds of a Carmelite monastery in Norfolk, England. Sister Wendy began stud December 26, 2018. She was sent to England where she completed her novitiate and then studied at St Anne's College, Oxford, where she was awarded a congratulatory first class honours degree[6] in English Literature. Sister Wendy always placed great value on art being accessible and enjoyable for everybody. Sister Wendy Beckett, (born February 25, 1930, Johannesburg, South Africadied December 26, 2018, East Harling, England), South African-born British nun who appeared on a series of popular television shows and wrote a number of books as an art critic. Asked once to explain her choice, she said, I am a nun. Frank Bruni, in The Times, said, The incongruity of such passionate and often sensuous statements coming from a hunched, bespectacled, 67-year-old nun is the secret to much of Sister Wendys charm and success.. In May 2009, Encounters with God: In Quest of the Ancient Icons of Mary was published, which follows Beckett's pilgrimage to see the earliest icons of Mary which had survived the Byzantine Iconoclasm. Beckett, Sister Wendy with Patricia Wright. There Sister Wendy dissected art in various museums around Britain. PBS / WGBH Educational Foundation, 2001. The art historian and critic Sister Wendy Beckett died aged 88 on Wednesday Dec, 26, 2018. She stood in front of the paintings dressed in a black nun's habit and discussed the paintings without a script or teleprompter. Church Times 2023. Rapidly establishing herself as an unconventional and engaging commentator, fizzing with enthusiasm, she became a household name in the 1990s, in spite of the life of seclusion which she maintained between television recording sessions. Search by Name. "[5], Beckett was born in the Union of South Africa, but was later raised in Edinburgh, Scotland where her father was studying medicine. Sister Wendy Beckett in 1997. Her order agreed to her living thereafter under the protection of the Carmelites in Norfolk as a hermit, devoting herself to prayer. She even used to promise to enlist the nuns of Quidenham to pray that some of the unmarried women producers she worked with would find suitable partners. Her most ambitious series, Sister Wendys Story of Painting, took her 30,000 miles through Europe, the Middle East and the United States, to survey works ranging from prehistoric cave paintings in France to the masterpieces of Picasso and the Pop Art of Andy Warhol. The sisters worried about the lack of insulation, so they put up a small mobile home, which has a lavatory, bathroom and light fittings, she told The Telegraph of London in 2010. She was 88. Please visit ourmembership pageto learn how you can invest in our work by subscribing to the magazine or making a donation. In the mid-1980s Sister Wendy, who had long been interested in art, began writing essays for British journals, using only postcards and books as her primary reference material. Los Angeles, Stranger Things play that may hold key to the end taking 1959 Hawkins to West End, Commentary: Now hiring! Submit an Obituary . New York: DK Publishing Inc. in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1994. In art appreciation classes aired in the 19th century, Europeans went crazy for one Story Atala. Her living thereafter under the protection of the most successful BBC art program since Kenneth Clarks Civilisation which... 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