A window with punch
The outstanding brilliance and dynamism of the stained glass designed by the Irish Arts and Crafts artist Wilhelmina Geddes after her move to England in 1925 is embodied in her window for All Saints church at Laleham in Surrey. Yet this masterpiece provoked bitter controversy, as Nicola Gordon Bowe explains.
Nicola Gordon Bowe, Monday, 25th August 2008
22 Mrs E.M. Rogers, letter to the author, 15 February 1984.
23 This mesmerising, hollow-eyed face is based on the ‘Chatsworth Head’ from Cyprus, c. 460 BC, while the fluting figure below her is derived from a nymph on the 5th-century BC ‘Nereid Monument’ from Xanthos, both in the British Museum, London.
24 The drawing in this section of the preparatory cartoon is particularly Blakean. I am grateful to Moira Thunder of the V&A for showing me the three Laleham cartoons.
25 Geddes’s own description, Laleham papers, Guildhall Library, London.
26 Geddes’s clinical notes from the Maudsley record, among her various phobias, her ‘Fears of the end of the world – contact with comet or dead star, along with more morbid fears of blood, wolves, infection etc’ (17 November 1925; Archives & Museum, Bethlem Royal Hospital). She had included coloured shooting stars in her stained glass windows since 1914/15.
27 Letter from F.C. Eeles to A.O. Belfour, 25 November 1925, Laleham papers, Guildhall Library, London.
28 Correspondence between Dr F.H.L. Errington, Chancellor of the London Diocese, and F.C. Eeles, Central Council for the Care of Churches, October 1927-March 1928. Laleham papers, Guildhall Library, London.
29 The Revd Desmond Guinness, letter to the author, 22 February 1984.
LATEST NEWS & COMMMENT
Manhattan transfer
The Lower East Side, once home to immigrants and aspiring artists, is no receiving the uptown treatment.
Shakespeare in stone
The National Trust's plans to acquire Seaton Delaval Hall are a tribute to a genius who has inspired writers and artists for centuries.
In pursuit of collectors
The Fitzwilliam Museum is celebrating the centenary of the directorship of Sydney Carlyle Cockerell with an exhibition that makes clear that he was in many ways the first modern museum director.
Comments
Post a comment