The secret Chagall hiding in Kent and other art you must see

The small but beautiful All Saints’ Church, Tudeley, accessed via a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ side road in Kent, is the most unlikely of settings for a sacred piece of art history. 

Nevertheless, it is the only church in the world to have all of its 12 breath-taking stained-glass windows created by Jewish painter and sculptor Marc Chagall.

Near Tonbridge in south-east England, the church dates to the 13th and 14th centuries and was largely rebuilt between 1745 and 1770. The unassuming building betrays nothing of the heritage or the emotional and spiritual weight it holds.

Yet those of any faith or none cannot help but be drawn into stillness and quiet contemplation by the sheer beauty, the vibrancy of the blue, yellow and white stained-glass windows with Chagall’s scrawled signature in the corners.

Known for his dreamlike depictions of flying goats, roosters and cows, fiddlers on roofs, floating lovers and angels, Chagall created an oeuvre comprising 10,000 artworks, including lithographs, etchings, sculptures, ceramics, mosaics and tapestries. He once said: “Perhaps I could have painted another Jewish prophet, but after 2,000 years mankind has become attached to the figure of Jesus.”

During his career, Chagall accepted many non-Jewish commissions: stained glass for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, a memorial at the United Nations, the ceiling mural in the Paris Opera and another in New York’s Metropolitan Opera House.

Incorporating Christian motifs into his work, Chagall described Jesus as “the radiant young man in whom young people delight”.

Back in Kent, the East Window of All Saints’ Church was commissioned in 1965 by the then owners of Somerhill House. Not as a grand gesture or show of extravagance, but as an act with profound intention.

The owners – Sir Henry, who was Jewish, and his Christian wife, Lady D’Avigdor-Goldsmid – turned to the revered artist to create the window in memory of their daughter Sarah, who drowned in a sailing accident off Rye in 1963. She was just 21.

Two years earlier, Sarah and her mother had visited Chagall’s exhibition at the Louvre, where the centrepiece was his luminous cycle of windows for the synagogue at the Hadassah Medical Centre, depicting the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Sarah was captivated by them.

It was that remembered love that led her parents to ask Chagall, who, while initially reluctant, agreed. But when he visited the church for the dedication of the East Window in 1967, he was so moved by its beauty that he declared: “This is magnificent. I’ll do them all.”

Collaborating with glassworker Charles Marq of Reims, over the next 15 years Chagall designed the remaining 11 windows. The chancel windows were finally installed in 1985, which was also the year of Chagall’s death at the age of 98.

Sarah’s younger sister, Chloe Teacher, now 81, is chairman of the Chagall Window Preservation Trust and she met the artist at the first installation.

“He was completely wonderful and very flirtatious,” she reveals. “He loved the church because it was completely empty of anything, and his window looked magnificent. And he said, ‘I’ll do the lot’, of which was a marvellous proposition.

“What’s absolutely stunning about the church,” she adds, “is that, because it was conceived as a whole, you view it as a whole, and each window gives a tremendous amount to its neighbour. It’s never a disappointment. They never let you down, and it’s a place of spirituality as well as of beauty. Perhaps the two go together, and I don’t have a favourite. Chloe is always delighted to see lots of visitors.

“My weekend guests are often thrilled to come to the church, not seeking for the service, but for the windows, and it’s a real draw.” With light pouring through Chagall’s windows – and Sarah’s in particular – be sure not to miss that Tudeley lane; what waits inside will lift you.

Textile Messages

Caren Garfen is a London-based textile artist known for her meticulous hand stitching and deeply researched work. Using fabric as both material and message, she tackles urgent social issues, gender stereotyping, dieting, eating disorders and body image.

Since 2019, her focus has turned to the Holocaust and the rise of global antisemitism. An award-winning artist, Caren has exhibited  across the UK, Europe, Australia, Japan and the US, with works held in both public and private collections.

Invited to exhibit in the III International Biennial of Contemporary Fiber Art at the
Museum of Embroidery and Textiles in Valtopina, Italy (4 September to 8 December), she is also creating a new piece centred on Jewish people abandoned by close friends since 7 October.

Stone Love

Shai Kedar, a 39-year-old artist from Herzliya, went to the beach “just to get some quiet”, he says.

“It was the middle of the week; it was empty. I went with a jacket, a coat, long pants and a hoodie. It was cold. I had no plans or expectations.” At the time, the Hamas-Israel war was ongoing and 90 hostages were still in Gaza.

He began “doing my stone balancing, which I find is my therapy”. Stepping into the water, he stacked one stone, then two, then five, then 10 in a small lagoon.

As people stopped to watch, he told them: “I wonder what 90 stones look like for the 90 hostages, because it’s unimaginable.”

One by one, he built them. “And every few minutes, I heard a splash and one had fallen down. It wasn’t easy. I got there at sunrise, and it was closer to sunset by the time I finished.”

When all 90 were finally standing, he went to record the achievement. “And then I got my camera out and took pictures until the last light, until the sun had built behind the sea. And I was so thrilled and excited, looking for myself through the stones, the imbalance of the hostage situation, and the stones which can fall down into the water in a minute and disappear. They can stay there, or they can be home [in the water]. No one knew.

“And after 24 or 48 hours, the stones had all gone; fallen into the sea. It was back to normal.”

For Shai, that felt symbolic. “It was a nice closure,” he says. “And people kept reaching out to me after a week saying that they saw it, they went by, they felt the energy.”

He is drawn to stone balancing because of its fragility. “Sometimes it holds for a day. Sometimes it holds for a minute. You’re working on one or two or three or four stones; you’re trying to find balance in the most unnatural way, and then someone can see it, and after a minute, it’s gone. And when it falls down people ask me, ‘Are you not upset?’”

“I know it’s temporary. And that’s part of the thing, being in the moment, as some kind of meditation.”

Dates for your diary: 

Affordable Art Fair, Hampstead (6–10 May):
Contemporary art in London. affordableartfair.com

• Wimbledon Art Fair (14 –17 May), Features more
than 180 artist studios. wimbledonartfair.com

• Photo London (13-17 May), The National Hall,
Olympia.  photolondon.org

• London Design Festival (12-20 September),
South Kensington. londondesignfestival.com

• Frieze (14-18 October),  Regent’s Park. frieze.com