Time, Death and Judgement

The social reformers Henrietta Barnett and Canon Samuel Barnett believed that increased access to the arts would improve lives and help to diminish inequality. In 188, they began to stage annual art exhibitions for the local community in the schoolhous of St Jude's Church in Whitechapel, one of London's most deprived areas.

In 1884, supporters of the Barnett's initiative commissioned a large mosaic for St Jude's. The mosaic recreated G F Watt's oil painting 'Time, Death And Judgement' (left), which the artist had loaned to the first Whitechapel exhibition. This recently conserved cartoon, made by Watts's studio assistant Cecil Schott, was used as a design for the mosaic, which was installed on the exterior of the church.