Project Outline
A very rare opportunity has arisen for one of our Alumni to be commissioned to design a large stained-glass panel for the Church of Belloy-en-Santerre sited on the WW1 battle fields of the Somme. Located in Northern France the glass project is being enabled by the famous champagne company The House Taittinger with financial support from private donors. The panel will be made in Reims from a scaled artist’s drawing by the Atelier Simon Marq, the stained-glass studios responsible for fabricating many of Marc Chagall’s stained-glass windows and Claire Tabouret’s winning design for Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral new window.
The theme of the window is a commemoration of three first world war poets who all died as young soldiers on the battle fields of the Somme. The preeminent figure to be memorialised is the American poet Alan Seeger, who volunteered to serve with the French Foreign Legion, and was the uncle of the folk singer Pete Seeger. The poets Reinhard Johannes (German) and the Spanish Catalan poet Sorge Camil Campanya-i-Mas will also figure. The Inspiration behind the memorial is the friendship between the nations and the tragic deaths of all the young foreign combatants who fought and died on these battlefields.
The stained-glass will be encased in a L.E.D. backlit panel and sit behind the high altar, acting as a reredos. Its final dimensions are TBC but will be around 3.5 x 4.5m. The shape of the design will be a tall semi-circle with the flat base at the bottom. The architecture of the church is spare and simple and the effect of this new stained-glass on other windows does not need to be considered as this will be a stand-alone piece free to be ambitious in its own language and visual impact. The sponsors are looking for a contemporary treatment of the themes that may even be more abstract in feel.
In recognition that glass is a specialised material with specific procedures there will be a preparation day offered to the winning artist to work in a British Glass studio to familiarise themselves with the techniques and effects that the Marq Studio artists will employ to translate their design into glass. There will also be a research trip to the V&A to consider back lit panels, the role of the lead lines in the design, the nature of light travelling through coloured glass and paint.
Criteria for Submissions
We are inviting submissions from Alumni under the age of thirty-five (stipulated to fit the ages of the poets who died), who would like to undertake this highly unusual commission with one of Europe’s leading Stained-Glass Studios.
You will need to be able to commit to the project immediately if you are successful, making a trip to Reims to see the church, Marq studios and meet the sponsors. It is necessary to understand that this is a commercial design process and that may therefore entail thematic alterations requested by the commissioners and some practical ones necessitated by the fabricators, entailing iterative versions to the final design. But you will have complete agency to submit a design interpretation wholly reflecting your own creative impulse. The design will require some research into the poets’ lives and writings, awareness of how the artwork’s legibility functions at scale and at various viewing distances in the church and the relationship of glass’s luminosity and how it combines with paint. However, you need no previous experience of stained-glass to apply.
The Process
· Submit ten representative images of work you think could be relevant and a general paragraph stating why this commission specifically interests you. Please submit these by 5pm GMT Monday 2 March 2026.
· From these artists we will select a shortlist of five to produce a preliminary A3 colour design. The shortlisted 5 will be informed by 15 March 2026.
· There will be a period of at least 6 weeks for them to develop their designs, with further guidance from RDS Senior Faculty and stained-glass artist Mark Cazalet. A fee paid of £250 will be made to each artist on receipt of these designs.
· A selection panel made up of Royal Drawing School members of staff and the sponsors, including the head of the Simon Marq studios will meet and make the final selection of the winning artist in mid May (date TBC).
· The appointed artist will be awarded £7000 for whole design process, from the A3 design and final scaled artwork. This includes the costs of a trip to visit Belloy-en-Santerre and the Atelier Simon Marq. It should be noted that to come to the final scaled artwork for the Marq Studios artists to work from you may well want to explore a sketch at full size before reducing it down to the scaled version in order to evaluate the effects of colour and compositional schema as well as the role of detail and overall legibility. Between the awarding of the commission and handing over the finished scaled design there will be a period of at least 3 months.
· It is hoped that the final work will be dedicated on 4 July 2027.
If you have any further follow up questions, or clarifications please contact residencies@royaldrawingschool.org