A Message from the Dean on Simon Verity
Dear Friends of St. John the Divine,
One of the Cathedral’s most important artists has died. Word has come from the family of Simon Verity, the principal carver of the Portal of Paradise, that he died Sunday in Wales. Mr. Verity was 79.
The Portal of Paradise is a program of sculptures set in the central west entrance of the Cathedral framing the bronze doors. Mr. Verityworked with a small group of apprentices, but he, himself, was both the director of the project and its chief artist. It depicts 34 figures from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures surrounded by other sculptures crafted according to Mr. Verity’s concepts and specifications.
Tourists from all over the world come to the Cathedral ostensibly to see only the Portal. By the busload they pull up, walk directly to it, hear a brief lecture from their tour guide, gaze in amazement, then leave. It’s as if the Portal is enough to give them a sense of the size and grandeur of the entire building and a glimpse into why it exists.
Mr. Verity took the long-dead worthies of the Hebrew and Christian traditions and made them things of wonder for people in our own day. Beyond this present age, his work will endure into a future beyond us. It will stand, not only a witness to our great Biblical ancestors, but also a monument to the late Dean James Parks Morton, who brought Mr. Verity to the Cathedral, and the many others who imagined our remarkable Cathedral and toiled to build and sustain it.
May Simon Verity, by God’s boundless grace, enter through the true Portal of Paradise and, in communion with all those whose images he carved, abide in the eternal dazzling beauty of God.
Your brother,
Patrick+
The Very Reverend Patrick Malloy, PhD
XI Dean
To learn more about the Portal of Paradise
For additional information about the Cathedral’s Portal of Paradies, please see the four-past #MuseumFromHome series Portal of Paradise by Tom Fedorek on the Cathedral’s YouTube channel.
Photo Credit: Martha Cooper