AIDAN HART
Aidan Hart is widely considered to be among the leading liturgical artists in the Western world, with commissioned works in over twenty-five countries, including with patriarchs, cathedrals, monasteries, and royalty. King Charles III commissioned Aidan to design and oversee the making of the embroidered Anointing Screen used at the coronation. He works in a wide range of media, including egg tempera, mosaic, fresco, stone and wood carving, and manuscript illumination.
A sought-after teacher of iconography, Aidan has written three books on icon painting, most recently the large work Festal Icons: History and Meaning, hailed as a ‘landmark’ and a study that ‘will be hard to surpass for many years to come’. He is director and tutor for the three-year part-time Icon Painting Certificate programme of The King’s Foundation School of Traditional Art. Aidan is also a Fellow of the Temenos Academy, and a Research Fellow of the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge. He is known for his role in helping to integrate into Western liturgical art the timeless principles embodied in the Byzantine tradition. To this end he often draws on the Romanesque and Anglo-Saxon periods for inspiration.
Aidan was born in England but grew up in New Zealand, where he was a professional sculptor. After becoming a member of the Orthodox Church he returned to Britain in 1983, and began working professionally as an iconographer. He lives in Shrewsbury with his wife and two grown children, his best icons yet.