Helen Dejean
British iconographer and art history lecturer
Looking forward
After nearly forty years working with icons across different sectors of the art world and undertaking numerous commissions worldwide, I returned to academia in 2022 to focus on teaching and research in Byzantine history of Art. Currently, I am an Associate Lecturer and PhD research student at The Courtauld Institute. I also lecture for City Lit in Central London and for The Arts Society nationwide. I still produce icons, and undertake selective commissions when time allows!
To date, I have delivered residential courses in some amazing locations and was the first to provide site-specific courses in situ at St Catherine’s Monastery in the Southern Sinai (from 2009), Assisi, Italy (from 2012) and Walsingham (from 2014). More recently, and conveniently closer to home, I have enjoyed teaching for Open Age (Ladbroke Grove), the Landmark Arts Centre, Teddington, and for The Courtauld’s Short Courses programme, as well as online courses.
Looking back
previous commissions outside the UK have included work for the Venerable English College, Rome; New Brunswick Cathedral, Canada and churches in America, Australia and Europe.
In the UK, I have been commissioned by the Cathedrals at Bristol and Chelmsford, Wymondham Abbey, the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, The Turf Club, Pall Mall, St Mary’s Church at Harrow on the Hill; St Bede’s Rotherham; Holy Trinity Church at Cuckfield; All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak; the Oratory of Cardiff University Chaplaincy; St Luke’s Church, Woodside; several chapels of the Woodard School Corporation plus many parish churches up and down the country.
In addition, I have produced many privately commissioned icons for individuals worldwide and increasingly undertake clerical portraiture, often of some very eminent individuals.
In terms of my art practice, I have painted in tempera since childhood and have developed my practice with the generous help of iconographers, mentors and experts from the Russian Orthodox tradition (notably the UKs first contemporary icon painters from St Seraphim’s Brotherhood, Walsingham). I have undertaken field and site research at St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai; Rome, Siena, Assisi, Istanbul and Moscow. Moreover, 9 years of examining and cataloguing icons in the Russian auction industry has given me first hand experience of the ‘real thing’.
Qualifications
Courtauld Institute of Art, PhD in Byzantine History of Art (2023 – present)
Courtauld Institute of Art, History of Art MA ‘Byzantium and its Rivals’ (2023)
Courtauld Institute of Art, History of Art MA ‘Sienese Painting 1250-1350’ (2007)
Open University, BA Hons ‘History of Art & Humanities’ (2006)
City & Guilds Adult Teacher Training (1989)
Digswell Arts Trust, Fine Art & Ceramics Fellowship (1983)
St Alban’s College of Art & Design, Fine Art diploma (1982).