Henry Payne

Henry Albert Payne RWS, also known as "Henry Arthur Payne", (1868 – 4 July 1940) was a British stained glass artist, watercolourist and painter of frescoes.

Payne was one of the Birmingham Group of Artist-Craftsmen who formed around Joseph Southall and the Birmingham School of Art in the late nineteenth century. He was involved in several of the group's collective projects, most notably the decoration of the chapel at Madresfield Court, which numbers among the seminal achievements of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Early years and studies Choosing the Red and White Roses in the Temple Garden (1908–10), pen and watercolour, gouache, gold-leaf and oil. Born in the King's Heath area of Birmingham, Payne studied under Edward R. Taylor at the Birmingham School of Art, where he was one of the students commissioned to paint a series of murals under Taylor's supervision for the redecoration of Birmingham Town Hall - the first "outward and visible sign of the rise to fame and importance of the Birmingham School".

Birmingham School educator In 1899, Payne was appointed to the School's staff, initially as a teacher of drawing and painting, but increasingly concentrating through the 1890s on the design of stained glass. In 1900, he installed a glass kiln at the school and studied stained glass manufacture in London under Christopher Whall so that, in the Arts and Crafts tradition, design and manufacture could be taught as an integrated process. Among his outstanding students were Margaret Agnes Rope and Archibald John Davies.

Stained glass and painting From at least 1904 onwards, he established an independent business designing and manufacturing stained glass, producing large and notable works for churches such as E. S. Prior's St Andrew's, Roker, St Martin's, Kensal Rise, St Mary's, Madresfield and J. L. Pearson's St Alban's, Bordesley.

St Loe's Guild In Amberley, Payne continued producing work in fresco and stained glass, and in 1912 established St Loe's Guild, initially modelled in the Arts and Crafts tradition on the Bromsgrove Guild, though ultimately little more than a vehicle for his own works.