Christopher Fiddes

Christopher John Ellis Fiddes (born Northampton 13 November 1934) is an English artist, muralist, designer of stained glass, and book illustrator.

Christopher Fiddes studied art at Northampton Art School from 1950-54 and then gained an Art Teacher's Diploma at Leicester University. He did two years' National Service in the Northamptonshire Regiment of the British Army and spent time in Hong Kong. In 1957 he started teaching art at Catholic boys' secondary school and then in 1972 became head of Art at Northampton High School. In 1962 he co-founded the Northampton Civic Society with the historian Sir Gyles Isham and local architects and archivists, with the aim of preserving historic buildings from redevelopment. In 1965 he bought a listed house in the village of Cogenhoe and over the next 10 years restored it. His occupation of that house, which is now a listed building, is celebrated with a plaque.[1]

In 1973 he travelled to Northern Ireland as an artist to create a record of The Troubles.[2] He was commissioned regularly by the author and publisher J. L. Carr to illustrate several of the small books of poetry that Carr published under the imprint of The Quince Tree Press.[3] In 2002 he was a leader of the Movement for Classical Renewal in art. His work is in the collections of Northampton Museum and Art Gallery and Salford Museum and Art Gallery.