Ever since a formative encounter with some frescoes in a Monastery on top of a mountain in Greece, Peter Murphy has been fascinated with Byzantine Art in general and particularly the works of the Cretan icon painters of the Middle Ages.
This lecture is both a survey of some of the greatest examples of this deeply spiritual and symbolic liturgical art form and an explanation of why many of the finest examples of icons by Cretan Masters, such as Michael Damaskinos, are to be found not in Greece or Crete, but a single fascinating collection in Venice.

Peter Murphy trained with noted iconographer Guillem Ramos Poqui in London. He uses traditional techniques from medieval religious painting, including egg tempera paint and gold leaf. He was Vice Chairman of the Society of Tempera Painters and is a member of The British Association of Iconographers for whom he runs workshops. He runs courses in the UK, Canada, Greece, and Italy teaching these techniques, and in addition leads groups on Sacred Art Tours to Italy and Sicily. He has been commissioned by a number of churches in the UK, notably Canterbury Cathedral original shrine site in the crypt., where his icon of St Thomas is the image which hangs close to the original shrine site in the crypt. He also has works in Tewkesbury Abbey and Hereford Cathedral. He has also been employed by a number of museums for special exhibitions; he has recreated a triptych by Simone Martini for The Barber Institute of Fine Arts and created a mural of ten scenes from the life of Benedict Biscop for Bede's World Museum in Jarrow. He was one of a team on a BBC TV show that recreated Botticelli’s, ‘Birth of Venus’ in a week. He is currently undertaking his fifth major commission for The Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral. In 2013 year he helped establish and is chief tutor for the St Peter’s Centre for Sacred Art, located in the medieval church of St Peter’s in the heart of Canterbury. He is visiting tutor in Byzantine Iconography and Early Italian painting and gilding techniques for the Edward James Foundation at West Dean College in Sussex. He is currently working on a major commission for a church in Nashville, Tennessee.