Stained Glass - Table of Contents

Henry Holiday (Holliday)
1839-1927

English historical genre and landscape painter, stained glass designer, illustrator and sculptor.


Source information below: Albert & Victoria Museum (online Dec. 2016)
Place of origin:  London (made)  ...  1886-1890 (designed)  ...  Holiday, Henry, born 1839 - died 1927 (designer)   ...   Clear and colourless glass, painted and stained  ...  Museum number:  C.11-2004  ...  Sacred Silver & Stained Glass, room 83, case S4

Henry Holiday was a designer of stained glass. Between 1863 and 1891 he worked as a freelance designer (not on an exclusive contract) for the glass makers Powells at Whitefriars in London. In 1891 he set up his own stained glass studio, where he presumably made panels as well as designing them.

The image on this panel was probably taken from a painting 'Aspasia in the Pynx', which Holiday painted about 1886-8. Aspasia was the mistress of Pericles, the great and controversial Athenian leader in Ancient Greece. The Pynx was an area of land where the Greek popular assembly met. Holiday included this painting in his book 'Reminiscences of My Life' which was published about 1914. The sitter was Miss Kathleen Douglas-Pennant (later Lady Falmouth), daughter of Lord Penrhyn.

Detail below:



"He took over as stained glass window designer at Powell's Glass Works, after Burne-Jones left in 1861 to work for Morris & Co. He fulfilled more than 300 commissions, mainly for American clients.

As a painter he excelled in drapery, producing figure subjects close in spirit to the work of Rossetti. He illustrated Lewis Carroll's 'The Hunting of the Snark', and the first edition of 'Through the Looking Glass'. He left Powell's and set up his own stained glass works in 1891." - Visit Cumbria: Henry Holiday

Henry Holiday was a painter as well as an established stained glass artist who had commissions both in England (Trinity College Cambridge, Birkenhead New Ferry Liverpool, St.James's Church, Kirkby Church and Huyton Church in Liverpool) and America (amongst others the Holy Trinity Church in Manhattan New York). He was also an illustrator, his most important illustrations being the ones he made for Lewis Carroll's book 'The Hunting of the Snark'.

Holiday was the youngest student of painting at the Royal Academy Schools in 1855. Like many of the young artists of his time Holiday was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Early in his career he was praised by the painter Millais (1829-1898) and was in contact with artists such as Holman Hunt (1827-90), Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) and D.G. Rossetti (1828-1882). Holiday also knew the critic John Ruskin (1819-1900) who encouraged the young painter.

In 1862 Holiday's career as a stained glass artist was launched when he succeeded the artist Edward Burne-Jones as the designer for the glass manufacturing company Messrs. Powell and Sons. Edward Burne-Jones had moved to William Morris's company.  ....

Holiday's designs for the memorial window in Westminster Abbey and the west windows of St. Mary Magdalene's church in Paddington reflected the influence of Italian Renaissance art on his work. Later on, in 1891 Holiday became dissatisfied with the working methods of the commercial stained glass firms and set off to establish his own workshop in Hampstead in London [in 1891].

There are 17 stained glass windows in the church, all memorials to various members of the Rhinelander family. Henry Holiday in England designed them, and he made them all except the west window which after his death was completed by his daughter from his designs.  These windows are the only complete cycle of windows remaining by Henry Holiday...


 ... from 1863 he worked primarily as a stained-glass artist, particularly in collaboration with the glass manufacturers James Powell & Sons and Heaton, Butler & Bayne.

After visiting Italy in 1867 he abandoned his early Pre-Raphaelite style for one inspired by Classical and Renaissance art, aiming to create a 'modern' style of stained glass no longer dependent on medievalism.

In 1891, dissatisfied with the working methods of the commercial stained-glass firms, he established his own workshop in Hampstead, London, and experimented successfully with making pot-metal glass.

Many of Holiday's later commissions were for American churches; his windows (1898-1925) in Holy Trinity, Manhattan, New York, reveal the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement in their emphatic leading and use of richly textured glass.

"[Holiday's] involvement with the Arts and Crafts movement led him to experiment with making his own glass. He was particularly partial to using slab glass, its uneven surface creating a jewel-like effect." - Stained Glass Museum: The Ministry of Christ

Top right illustration: Detail from  St. Paul Episcopal Cathedral: Ascension  This is the only Holiday window in Buffalo.


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