Already an established artist working primarily in the medium of
painting and
printmaking, Piper only began designing for stained glass in the 1950s when he was aged over 50 years old. It would become a major, though far from exclusive, avenue of artistic expression during the second half of Piper's career. From the outset, Piper forged a productive professional relationship with the glassmaker Patrick Reyntiens, who realised the large majority of Piper's completed designs for glass. Despite Piper being more than 20 years' older than Reyntiens, and by far the more established artist, in general this was a reciprocal and collaborative partnership. Though always structured by Piper’s origination of an overall design, they resisted a hierarchical model of artist above craftsman in favour of interdependent creative exchange. This allowed Reyntiens significant interpretative agency, which was particualrly true for large-scale and experimental commissions, such as the Crown of Glass for
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. Together, Piper and Reyntiens completed over 60 individual stained glass commissions over a period of more than 30 years, their reputation forged early, particularly after the contemporary critical praise afforded to the baptistry window at
Coventry Cathedral. Commissions were primarily - though not exclusively - intended for religious settings, benefiting from widespread reconstruction efforts following the
Second World War. Piper designed in both figurative and abstract styles interchangeably throughout his career according to the individual commission and the brief from the client. Nevertheless, his works in stained glass - and his artistic practice more generally - are united by their
modern painterly style. In the same essay Piper also emphasised the importance of maintaining a clear separation between the artist-designer and the craftsman-manufacturer, seeing this distinction as vital to preserving both creative integrity and technical excellence in modern stained glass practice. This conception of creative division can certainly be read as an endorsement of the particular nature of Piper’s own collaborative partnership with Reyntiens. It has also been read as a strategically performative piece of reputational positioning in relation to his contemporaries working in the medium, most of whom practiced as both designer and maker, such as
John Hayward,
Keith New and
Harry Stammers. ==List of works in stained glass==