All talks will be held online via Zoom. Tickets are £6.50 per talk, or £5 for Friends of The Stained Glass Museum
Find out more and buy tickets here https://stainedglassmuseum.com/toursandlectures
Powell & Sons’ opus sectile: innovation in glass mosaics, 1860s-1890s
Lily Crowther, Curator, Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum
Wednesday 4 October 2023, 7pm (UK) (online webinar)
Leading stained-glass makers James Powell & Sons developed a new type of mosaic tiling material in the early 1860s. The vibrantly coloured opaque tiles, known later as opus sectile, were especially popular in church interiors, where they were used for polychrome tiled floors as well as fresco-like mural decoration. This talk will introduce new research which has revealed more about the early history of opus sectile, and particularly how the material was collected and promoted by the South Kensington Museum.
Lily Crowther is Curator of the social history and decorative art collections at Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum. She is also reading for a DPhil at Oxford University and the Victoria & Albert Museum; her research focuses on the collections and legacies of the Museum of Construction & Building Materials, which was part of the South Kensington Museum in the 1850s-1880s.
William Burrell’s Stained Glass Collection
Edward Johnson, Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Art (Burrell Collection) and Dr Marie Groll, The York Glaziers Trust
Wednesday 11 October 2023, 7pm (UK) (online webinar)
After a major redevelopment project, The Burrell Museum was named Art Fund Museum of the Year in 2023. Amongst the extraordinarily rich and diverse collection gifted to the city of Glasgow by collector William Burrell is a significant collection of medieval and Renaissance stained and painted glass. Many of these windows are on display at the museum and this is an opportunity to find out more about how Burrell came to acquire these fine pieces, how they were displayed in the collector’s home, and how they have been curated for modern audiences visiting the Burrell Collection today.
Edward Johnson is Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Art at the Burrell Collection, Glasgow. Marie Groll is Business Manager of the York Glazier’s Trust, whose PhD research on William Burrell, Thomas Drake and the Transatlantic Trade in Stained Glass in the first half of the 20th century was carried out at the University of York in conjunction with Glasgow Museums.
Pauline Boty: Collage into Stained Glass – a Pop Art Approach
Dr Sue Tate, author of Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman
Wednesday 18 October 2023, 7pm (UK) (online webinar)
Pauline Boty was one of the founders of British Pop; a talented and ambitious artist, and also a charismatic player on the swinging London scene. She produced a vibrant body of work in stained glass, collage and paint that both challenges and enriches Pop from a female perspective. This talk will focus on the stained glass work she made while at the Royal College of Art (including the piece held at the Ely Stained Glass Museum). It will explore the relationship between the mediums of collage and stained glass and place both in the wider context of Boty’s whole oeuvre and contribution to Pop.
Dr Sue Tate is a freelance art historian with a specific interest in women artists. She is the leading expert on Pauline Boty, British Pop Artist, 1938-66, having curated exhibitions of her oeuvre, lecturing on it in the UK, Europe and the USA, and published essays, book chapters and the definitive book on the artist: Pauline Boty: Pop Artist and Woman.
