In the 1950s and 60s, Donald Pass, who has died of cancer aged 80, was a highly regarded painter of abstracts. His prestigious career in London was suddenly interrupted when, in 1969, he underwent a profound mystical experience in an English churchyard. His art and his everyday life changed from that moment. "A veil had been lifted," he announced, "and I would never again see anything in the same way."
The professional productions ceased and his whole focus now was on communicating the churchyard experience, a vision of ascending souls, winged sentinels and transcendent landscapes, to the widest audience. In 1984 he began a series of monumental charcoal drawings depicting the resurrection. On seeing them, Sir John Rothenstein, former director of the Tate gallery, proclaimed Pass "a genius and a very rare talent".
Working in his studio near Oxford, Donald continued for the rest of his life to convey his vision in the form of scores of drawings and paintings, in his final years attracting the attention of museum collections in the US, Britain and Europe. Film-makers, too, had started to document his very personal, very English awakening.
Born in Congleton, Cheshire, Donald attended the King's school in Macclesfield. He then enrolled at Burslem College of Art in 1947, from where he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Art in London. When he was called up for national service, a medical examination found that Donald's eyesight was poor. He instead began teaching art at Walsall Art College, moving to Drake Hall Prison in Stafford, where he managed to establish art on the curriculum, and later to Liverpool College of Art, where John Lennon was one of his students.
Donald is survived by his wife Jacqueline, two sons and three daughters.