Lectures
Every year we hold a programme of lectures and webinars on stained glass. We invite eminent speakers who specialise in contemporary practice, historical research and conservation. The in-person lectures are held at the beautiful and atmospheric Art Workers Guild in London and are followed by a buffet supper for those who choose to stay.
Lectures normally cost £17 (£14.45 members) and the evening meal is £16 (£13.60 members). Online webinars taking place via Zoom cost £5.00 (£4.25 members). Members receive their 15% discount at the checkout.
Moira Forsyth – A Deep Conviction in Glass
Moira Forsyth – A Deep Conviction in Glass
Autumn Webinar with Alan Brooks
It is with great pleasure that we welcome Alan Brooks who has been researching the glass of Moira Forsyth over the last few years as a follow-on from his work on the Glass House. During the course of this, he explored her archive at the V&A Archive of Art & Design before it became unavailable due to the rehousing of the collection, and has visited many of the locations for which she made windows.
Moira Forsyth (1905-91) was a very talented painter, ceramic designer and stained glass artist. She became one of the most distinctive of the 20th Century traditionalist stained glass designers, in work that stretched over a long 50-year career, most of which was associated with the Glass House in Fulham. She made windows for over 50 locations, including the cathedrals of Norwich, Guildford, Bradford and St Paul’s in London. She had a deep conviction in the power of artistic expression through glass in its beauty and colour, ‘one of the most exciting mediums….yet one of the most difficult to control’.
The photo shows part of a 1968 appliqué panel of St Christopher for St Paul’s Cathedral.
Join us on Friday 16th September at 6pm for a fascinating talk. Members only pay £4.25 (£5.00 full price) so book now as tickets are limited.
Buy ticketsCentenary Birthday Party
Centenary Birthday Party
We return to our home at the Art Workers Guild, after a break of two years, with an event to celebrate a hundred and one years of the Master Glass Painters with a sparkling reception, buffet dinner, birthday cake and with Alf Fisher and Peter Cormack as our keynote speakers who will share their knowledge of our rich history. Peter’s talk will be ‘Reflections on the Past and Future of British Stained Glass’, and Alf will talk about ‘Memorable Characters in the Society and how we have Faced Changes.’
The event will include a raffle to raise funds for the AGBI. The Artists General Benevolent Institution was set up by the painter JMW Turner to support artists who have fallen on hard times. It is more relevant than ever in the current climate. The raffle will have prizes for stained glass lovers and tickets are available here for those who can’t attend.
So dust off those glad rags and dress to impress and join us for a fun evening to reunite with old friends and with our stained glass community.
Friday 1 July 6.15pm at the Art Workers Guild. Tickets £38.25 for members (£45 non-members). You can add an additional donation to the AGBI as you check out of the shop. Your donations, however small, are very gratefully received!
Spaces are limited and selling fast. Book now to avoid disappointment as bookings can’t be taken on the day.
This event has passedStained Glass Conservation Webinar
Stained Glass Conservation Webinar
The Role of the Cathedral Architect
We are delighted to host the second in our conservation-themed webinars with two of our leading cathedral architects, Camilla Finlay AABC, and Antony Feltham-King, RIBA, Grad Dipl Cons AA, AABC.
Camilla and Antony are members of an extraordinary fraternity of architects with the ability to marshal the complex strands required to maintain and safeguard our tremendous cathedrals for future generations. The architects have a broad knowledge of all the materials and processes involved in the building, as well as methods of maintenance and conservation. Hugely complex grant applications are part of their remit, as well as forging working relationships with conservators, conservation scientists and art historians.
But of course, it is not all about conservation: new works are commissioned in a wide variety of materials including stained glass. Underpinning all of this is an acute awareness of the life and worship of the cathedral.
Tickets are only £4.25 for members so do join us on Monday 9th May at 6pm for a look behind the scenes of the cathedral. Spaces are limited so make sure you book your ticket now.
The webinar is helping to raise funds the Disasters Emergency Fund for Ukraine. You can add a voluntary donation of £1, £5, £10 or £20 when you check out. Thank you.
From Wales with Love
From Wales with Love
Online lecture with Catrin Jones
We are delighted to welcome Welsh stained glass artist Catrin Jones to give our spring lecture to coincide with the Centenary Touring exhibition visiting Swansea.
‘I have been blessed to have been able to spend my creative career working with light, glass and narratives for public architecture. Having begun my training at Swansea College of Art under Tim Lewis in the late seventies, I benefited from the notion that Wales was at the centre of something unique and international – an outlook I consider to have been a great gift, which has sustained my unquenchable enthusiasm and love of this most alchemical of disciplines.’
Tickets are only £4.25 for members and all profits will be donated to help the people of Ukraine. So do join us on Friday 25th March at 7pm for a fascinating delve into Catrin’s extensive career. Spaces are limited so make sure you book your ticket now.
This event has passedOnline lecture January 2022 – John Piper
Online lecture January 2022 – John Piper
The Role of Stained Glass in John Piper’s Life and Work with Professor Frances Spalding CBE
The first online lecture of 2022 coincides with the Centenary touring exhibition visiting All Saints Church in Bristol where John Piper made some extraordinary windows. We are fortunate to have the leading expert on his work, Frances Spalding, to share her knowledge with us.
John Piper did not begin designing stained glass until he was in his early 50s. He then went on to undertake over 60 works in this medium across the next 30 years. Stained glass had made an unforgettable impact on him as a child and in early adulthood he began making copies of stained glass in watercolour. This talks looks at his interest in and involvement with stained across his lifetime, mentioning also some of the conclusions he drew from it.
Tickets are only £4.25 for members so do join us on Friday 21st January at 7pm for this enlightening talk. Spaces are limited so make sure you book your ticket now.
Stained glass in the City
Stained glass in the City
Post-war stained glass in the City of London with Alexandra Epps
Our online winter lecture is brought to you by the renowned lecturer and official guide for the Tate, Alexandra Epps.
Following the devastation of wartime bombing, a remarkable generation of architects, artists and craftsmen emerged to recreate the churches of the City of London in the spirit of Sir Christopher Wren and his office. Discover the identity of the City – unique stories of people, time and place – expressed within the fascinating post-war stained glass of some of these historic churches.
Tickets are only £4.25 for members so do join us on Friday 19th November at 7pm for this enlightening talk. Spaces are limited and this lecture will not be recorded for copyright reasons so make sure you book your ticket now.
Autumn Lecture 2021
Autumn Lecture 2021
Australia’s Stained Glass: Short History… Long Story
Our International theme continues with a lecture by Dr Bronwyn Hughes on the stained glass of Australia.
Through a selection of stained glass windows installed in Australian architecture, this webinar will explore British connections and influence from the 1850s onwards, as both countries were changed by depression, war and economic circumstance. Stained glass, seen by many as simply decorative, was an outcome of society’s fluctuations and can be viewed as documents of art, architectural, and religious history.
We look forward to learning more about how the discovery of gold brought artists and artisans to enhance the building boom it spawned. Join us for this fascinating talk.
Tickets are only £5 (£4.25 for members). Friday 10th September at 7pm. Tickets are limited so book now!
This event has passedSummer Lecture 2021
Summer Lecture 2021
Stained Glass in America with Julie Sloan
With almost 40 years of stained glass conservation experience in the United States, Julie Sloan will bring us a fascinating lecture on stained glass from across The Pond. The art has evolved over the last two hundred years and the talk will feature all the greats such as Louis Comfort Tiffany, Charles Connick and Frank Lloyd Wright as well as a host of other artists. Don’t miss this overview from a renowned author of many books on stained glass.
Tickets are only £5 so join us on Friday 11th June at 7pm for this enlightening talk. Tickets are limited so book now!
This event has passedCollaboration between conservation disciplines
Collaboration between conservation disciplines
Online Webinar
As part of our continuing Centenary celebrations we are holding a conservation themed webinar which will explore the collaboration between conservation disciplines. We are fortunate indeed to have three very distinguished speakers:
Sara Crofts, Chief Executive of The Institute for Conservation (Icon), will introduce the event, followed by presentations from Tobit Curteis, and Robyn Pender.
Sara Crofts trained as an architect at Edinburgh College of Art, specialising in building conservation and is an SPAB Lethaby Scholar. She is member of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is a Council Member of Europa Nostra and Chair of Europa Nostra UK. Sara’s views, as a key strategic planer in UK conservation, will be of great interest.
Dr. Robyn Pender is a Senior Building Conservation Adviser in Historic England’s Policy and Evidence directorate. Robyn has been very involved in developing research projects related to the conservation of stained glass, including major cathedral schemes, and will bring her great depth of knowledge and tremendous enthusiasm to bear in describing her work.
Tobit Curteis ACR works as a consultant for Historic England, and is the Advisor on Wall Paintings for the National Trust. Following a degree in the History of Art at Warwick University, Tobit undertook his postgraduate training in the conservation of wall paintings at the Courtauld Institute of Art, in conjunction with the Getty Conservation Institute, subsequently working in Florence and Rome. In parallel with his work on historic wall paintings, Tobit has, for over twenty years, been developing environmental survey and monitoring techniques for historic buildings, with a particular emphasis on stained glass.
We look forward to an illuminating account of the developing and valuable working relationship between conservators, stained glass conservators and conservation scientists.
Tickets for this extended webinar are still only £5 so join us on Friday 14th May at 6pm GMT for this enlightening talk. Tickets are limited so book now!
This event has passedFifty Years of the Master Glass Painters and Much More
Fifty Years of the Master Glass Painters and Much More
Online Webinar with Alfred Fisher MBE, FMGP
We are delighted to welcome back Alf Fisher to an online Webinar about his many years of stained glass and his memories of some of the characters from the British Society of Master Glass Painters history.
Alfred Fisher has produced stained glass windows of the highest order for over six decades, and his legacy of work can be found in some of the most prestigious buildings in the land including Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Chequers and the Guildhall. Alf began his career at Whitefriars Studio in the 1950s, where he was an early pioneer of fusing glass for architectural settings and became their last Chief Designer before co-founding Chapel Studio with Peter Archer in 1973. He is a past Chairman and Hon. Secretary of the Society and now Vice-President. In our centenary year, he will talk about some of the people he recalls from sixty years ago and the influences on his own work, from Erwin Bossanyi to John Piper and John Hutton.
Tickets are only £5 so join us on Friday 12th March at 7pm GMT for this enlightening talk. Tickets are limited so book now!
This event has passed
Keep Calm and Think About Glass
Keep Calm and Think About Glass
Online Webinar with Judith Schaechter
We are delighted to welcome Judith Schaechter FMGP to launch our Centenary year with an online Webinar about her artwork. Thirty-seven years ago Judith graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a degree in glass and has never lost her passion for the medium of stained glass as a fine art form. Ever fascinated with the mechanics of how inspiration travels from spark to material and how ideas are developed into object and/or pictorial form, Judith will discuss how these ephemeral creative processes manifest in her work. Judith may even answer the often unspoken question: ‘Why is your work so weird?’
Judith lives and works in Philadelphia PA and her work is included in international collections including the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Hermitage in Russia. Her work is currently the subject of a travelling retrospective exhibition organized by the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery of Rochester, NY.
Tickets are only £5 so join us on Friday 29th January at 7pm GMT for this enlightening talk. Tickets are limited so book now!
This event has passedThe Magic Lantern
The Magic Lantern
Online Webinar with Steve Clare
The Society is pleased to announce that the chairman of our Conservation Working Group, Steve Clare, will speak about the fascinating painted glass of the 18th century, and the transitional period into the early 19th century. The speaker has unrivalled experience in the conservation of glass of this period; the techniques and methods of important figures such as Peckitt, Pearson, and Eginton will be discussed in detail, with superb images taken during live conservation projects.
Tickets are only £5 so join us on Friday 27th November at 7pm for this enlightening talk. Tickets are limited so book now!
This event has passedAutumn Lecture 2020
Autumn Lecture 2020
Matthew Reeves – Stained Glass at an Intersection – Church, Gallery & Museum
An expert in lost medieval stained glass from France, Matthew Reeves is a curator who now works at the Sam Fogg gallery in London. His lecture will explore the relationships between the Church, commercial art galleries and museums. Matthew has been working with museums to help raise the profile of stained glass, something we are all keen to achieve.
Do join us on Zoom for a visually rich evening as Matthew shares his expertise and love of Medieval and Renaissance stained glass. Tickets cost £5.00 to non-members and £4.25 for members. Places are limited so book now!
This event has passedSummer Lecture 2020
Summer Lecture 2020
Frans Wesselman – Godiva and the Art of Storytelling CANCELLED
Intriguing and beguiling, Frans Wesselman’s stained glass art draws you into a world of stories and characters. His etchings and woodcuts explore similar themes on paper. We will hear how Frans switches between media and learn about his glass painting techniques, where his inspiration comes from and about his Godiva windows that tell the story of Coventry’s history.
Do join us for a fascinating evening with an artist whose unique vision inspires a loyal following. Frans will bring some of his original artworks to the lecture.
This event has passedSpring Lecture 2020
Spring Lecture 2020
Christopher Webb – Popular, Prolific, Profound
One of the most respected stained glass artists of his generation, Webb’s reputation plummeted after his death in 1966. While recognising his skill in design and draughtsmanship, commentators have disparaged his windows as anaemic or anachronistic. This lecture by John Edwards uses the archive of Webb’s design sketches and full-size cartoons, together with evidence from a newly-compiled list of his stained glass windows and other artworks to confront these views. What emerges from Webb’s long career is far greater diversity than the caricatures suggest, and a unique legacy.
John has promised to bring some of the artist’s original sketches to the Art Workers Guild so do join us for a visual treat and a fascinating evening. And if you have never tried the buffet supper, it is well worth staying for.
This event has passedAutumn lecture 2019 Imported Continental Glass in Kent Churches
Autumn lecture 2019 Imported Continental Glass in Kent Churches
Our Hon. Librarian Leslie Smith will be talking about the Flemish, Swiss, and perhaps German, stained glass roundels in the churches of his home county of Kent. The distribution of imports was random, because of the geographical spread of their collectors, so although small in number, local studies can be of value.
He will describe the Northern European roundels listed by William Cole in the 1993 Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi Catalogue and examine their provenance, their import and sale and their collectors, as well as the sources for their designs and mainly biblical subjects. Swiss glass from the seventeenth century will also be discussed, plus a diversion to look at a previously uncatalogued country house collection.
This event has passedSummer lecture 2019 Martin Donlin
Summer lecture 2019 Martin Donlin
Reflections on 30 years of Glass
Speaker Martin Donlin
We are delighted that the award winning architectural glass artist Martin Donlin will be giving the Summer Lecture.
Martin has been working in glass, colour and light since his student days in Swansea. He is a consummate artist, comfortable with the decoration of enormous spaces in public as well as private buildings worldwide.
Somehow he is able to include complex imagery and information within a radiantly beautiful addition to almost any style of building using glass each time to suit and enhance the space.
This lecture will be a fascinating learning curve for us all.
This event has passed
Spring lecture 2019
Spring lecture 2019
Adrian Barlow’s new book Espying Heaven: The Stained Glass of Charles Eamer Kempe and his Artists offers a detailed discussion of Kempe’s work, with a strong focus on particular windows, themes and relationships. Analysis of C.E. Kempe’s stained glass in the context of contemporary firms, such as Morris & Co., Burlison & Grylls, Christopher Whall, etc., enriches our understanding and evaluation of his legacy and standing today.
Adrian will be giving the BSMGP Spring Lecture at the Art Workers Guild and will share his in-depth knowledge of the windows of C. E. Kempe’s prolific firm with an audience who may already have strong ‘marmite’ opinions. An interesting evening is in store! Do join us.
Copies of Espying Heaven will be for sale on the night.
This event has passedAutumn lecture 2018
Autumn lecture 2018
Theodora Salusbury: The Peacock Lady (1875-1956)
Speaker: Andrew Loutit
As a pupil of both Christopher Whall and Karl Parsons, Theodora Salusbury’s work is predictably colourful, but it is also characterised by her excellent drawing skills to produce particularly lifelike figures in her stained glass. She remains a relatively unknown artist and Andrew, her great-nephew, is seeking to establish a reputation more deserving of these skills.
This event has passed500 Years of Stained Glass with Martin Harrison
500 Years of Stained Glass with Martin Harrison
In Suffolk Martin Harris has been trying to identify workshops, other than the well-known ones in Norwich, responsible for the region’s stained glass in the 15th century. This connects to local glass-painters in the early 19th century whose restorations of medieval glass have seldom been identified. Martin brings his findings to the Art Workers Guild and shares them with the audience.
This event has passed
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