Dom Sylvester Houédard

Renowned in theological circles, Benedictine monk Dom Sylvester Houédard (b. 1924, Guernsey – d. 1992, Prinknash Abbey, United Kingdom) was also a writer of concrete poetry, an artistic and literary movement he joined in the early 1960s. In the abstract visual poems he called ‘Typestracts’, Houédard, who signed his written works and letters with the initials ‘dhs’, utilised the various graphical possibilities offered by the typewriter, as well as the visual effects he obtained using different ink ribbon colours as well as carbon paper. He straddled two worlds: as an ‘avant-gardiste’, he collaborated with artists like Gustav Metzger (b. 1926, Nuremberg – d. 2017, London), Yoko Ono (b. 1933, Tokyo) and John Cage (b. 1912, Los Angeles – d. 2012, New York), but also carried on the long-standing poetic tradition of the Order of Saint Benedict. Hence, he defined his graphic works as ‘icons representing sacred matters’ to which ‘one’s reaction is not a “response”, but rather an increased awareness and admiration – gratitude, depth and pleasure’. After his 1971 solo exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Houédard gradually withdrew from the art scene to focus on his theological research. It is only recently that his work is being rediscovered following the publication of several books on a body of work that has been difficult to access because it is spread among many different collections.