Lectures

The British Society of Master Glass Painters is fortunate to attract many eminent speakers on stained and architectural glass from amongst its UK and international membership and beyond. Subjects range from modern to mediaeval, brought to life by the enthusiasm and expertise of historians, conservators and contemporary practitioners.

Venue: The Art Workers Guild, Queen Square, London WC1 (Admission by ticket only)

Organizer: Sue Ashworth   Bookings: Helen Robinson

Further enquiries to: Lectures

Programme 2010

Download 2010 events programme and booking forms.

Spring lecture
Friday 12 March - 6.15 for 6.45pm

Joe Nuttgens - 'A Working Argument: How I survived my father and became a Stained Glass Artist!'

There were many influences in my youth, not only the work of my father, J. E. Nuttgens and the artists he admired - particularly Eric Gill, but a whole culture: the tradition of stained glass, the Arts & Crafts Movement, Catholicism and Catholic art, Distributism (‘Back to the land!’), and later, John Piper, to say nothing of my father’s eccentric ways, twelve brothers and sisters and ‘proud’ rural poverty. As a student at the RCA in the 1960’s my reaction was to rebel and I virtually abandoned stained glass until 1978 when I worked for Patrick Reyntiens (who, himself, had started with my father), and began to find my own way. This is an attempt to make sense of all these influences and put my rebellion into perspective.

DISCUSSION DAY - Tuesday 20 April 10.30 - 5pm

Chris Chesney - 'Heavy metal, an acid trip and other useful drugs'
Roy Coomber - Glass Painting Master Class

A team of Fellows and Associates will lead an informal Discussion Day focusing on technical questions.  This year will focus particularly on the safe use of acid and on painting techniques.  To aid organisation members are encouraged to send any specific questions in advance to Helen Robinson Lectures

Summer Lecture and Annual General Meeting
Friday 18 June - AGM 5pm, lecture 6.15 for 6.45pm

Glyn Davies (Research Fellow and Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum) - 'Leading and Light Boxes:Conserving the Stained Glass in the V&A's Medieval and Renaissance Galleries'

Autumn Lecture
Friday 15 October - 6.15 for 6.45pm

Tom Denny - 'Recent windows in extraordinary buildings'

Is it possible to make a stained glass window that is rewarding in its own right but that also acknowledges with real sensitivity the particular demands of its setting? An ancient building such as Hereford Cathedral embodies extraordinary riches of structure and surface, with lifetimes of opportunity for contemplation and discovery. In 2007 I filled the windows of a miniature late gothic chapel there with glass about the seventeenth century priest and poet Thomas Traherne. Since then much of my time has been devoted to an enormous Transfiguration window that illuminates Cuthbert's shrine at Durham Cathedral. I will show slides from those projects as well as from recent windows in several very different English parish churches. 

Christmas Dinner in aid of the Artists General Benevolent Institution

Friday 3 December - reception 6.30pm

An evening of festive entertainment, good food and fine wine!

Lectures retrospective

2009

• Roy Albutt - 'The Bromsgrove Guild'
• Andrew Rudebeck - 'On the trail of John Thornton'
• Leifur Breidfjord 'New Work'

2008

• David King - 'Personalities, Politics and Plays': The stained Glass of east Harling Church, Norfolk
• Ellen Mandelbaum - 'Light Listened', a review of the work of this contemporary glass artist.
• Geoffrey Robinson FMGP - 'Windows into the life of a Stained Glazier'

2007

• Kate Baden Fuller - 'Contemporary stained glass artists and how to write a book about them'
• Sarah Brown MA FSA Hon FMGP - The Judge, the traitor, his wife and her lover - the medieval glass of Tewkesbury Abbey'
• Doris Rollinson, Andrew Taylor and Caroline Swash '- 'Fifty Years of Glass - amongst other things'. A celebration of the life and work of John Hayward FMGP'

2006

• Tim Lewis – 'The importance of the teacher in stained glass'
• Ginger Ferrell – 'A new bag of tricks': the use of kiln formed glass in new work
• Dr David O'Connor – 'Mediaeval stained glass in Scandinavia: Gotland's gothic glass'
• Tony Benyon, Peter Cormack FSA and the Rt Revd Graeme Knowles AKC, MLC – 'Alan Younger, focus on an artist's life: three perspectives'
• Peter Gibson - 'The Christmas Story in Stained Glass'

2005

• Catrin Jones - ’20 years of practice’
• Caroline Swash – ‘Confessio. The thoughts and art of Johannes Schreiter’
• Julie Sloan MSc and Dr James Yarnall – ‘John La Farge’
• Dr Paul Binski – Canterbury Cathedral and the aesthetics of martyrdom’

2004

• Dr Michael Peover - 'Sleeping Beauty : unseen stained glass at the Soane Museum'
• Linda Lichtman – ‘Little and large: keeping the personal in public commissions'
• Ruth Taylor Jacobson – ‘Marc Chagall’

2003

• Dr Tim Ayers FSA – ‘Glazing the English Medieval cathedral:the East End of Wells c1320-1340’
• Graham Jones – his work in stained glass
• Dr Nicola Gordon Bowe – ‘The most exacting of masters, the most ruthless scrapper of imperfect heads: the art of Wilhelmina Geddes 1887–1955’