Wilhelmina Geddes

Wilhelmina Geddes HRUA (25 May 1887 – 10 August 1955) was an Irish stained glass artist who was an important figure within the Irish Arts and Crafts movement and also the twentieth-century British stained glass revival. She was the eldest of four children, three girls and a boy, of William Geddes (c.1852-1916) and his wife Eliza Jane Stafford (1863-1955). The family, who migrated to Ireland from Scotland, had mainly been farmers. Her father, a Methodist, who was born near his father's farm at Tandragee, County Armagh, emigrated to America as a young man, working as a labourer for the railway construction business. This served a useful purpose as he had worked as a site engineer at the Cavan, Leitrim and Roscommon Railway Company. When she was still an infant her parents moved to their native home in Belfast, so her father could set up in business as a building contractor.

Education Geddes began drawing subjects from life and nature from the age of four. She learnt first how to draw from the school mistress in Ayrshire, where her father occasionally went shooting. She began her studies at Methodist College Belfast along with her three younger sisters. She later moved to the Belfast School of Art. Geddes was encouraged by Rosamond Praeger, a sculptor from County Down, to continue with her studies. Geddes was accepted as a student to study at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University. This is where Geddes adapted and improved her style and was introduced to a professional standard of art work.

Whilst still studying at the Belfast School of Art, Geddes took part in the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland's fourth exhibition. For this exhibition, Geddes contributed a glowingly coloured illustration of the book Cinderella Dressing the Ugly Sister (Dublin City Gallery), which she had created. It was at this exhibition that Geddes' work was spotted by Sarah Purser, a well established painter seeking newly trained students to introduce to stained glass artistry. Purser, who went on to be Geddes' lifelong mentor,

Geddes contributed a watercolour illustration of a Ballad Seller with the Belfast Art Society in 1907. She was elected as an Associate of the Belfast Art Society's successor, the Ulster Academy of Arts, in 1933 before promotion to Honorary Academician in 1935. Geddes showed five illustrations in the 1911 Oireachtas Exhibition. It was some twenty-one years before she returned to the Oireachtas when she exhibited three cartoons and three sketches for stained glass in 1932. thumb Plaque placed by the Ulster Historic Society at Geddes residence, Marlbourough Park South. Her work was considered pioneering and represented a rejection of the Late Victorian approach. She created a new view of men in stained glass windows, portraying them with close-shaven crew cuts. "The muscularity and tension of her portraiture is matched by the radical design of her constructions. Ambitious large-scale projects, as at the cathedral in Ypres, are equalled by the drama of smaller-scale work at Wallasey (Lancashire) and Wallsend (Northumberland), or war memorial windows in obscure country churches." This piece is located in Ontario, Canada. The window is a memorial piece, depicting images of mourning men and women. Geddes uses primitive colours in her Ottawa Window, the most prominent being yellow and black. An article in Irish Life featured the window on the cover of its Christmas edition in 1919. The writer of the article considered this window to be "one of the artistic triumphs of this century". Geddes completed the entire window in Purser's glass works, Upper Pembroke Street in Dublin, Ireland. She painted the figures on glass with an incredible clarity and rich use of colour. The three dominant figures portrayed in this piece are: Christ, St Peter and St Andrew. These characters are portrayed to be occupied with thoughts beyond "mortal cares". Geddes herself declared that the window's subject was 'The Prophecy of Esaias' and the 'Calling of Peter and Andrew'. Christ is the central figure and stands taller than St Peter and St Andrew. Christ holds within his hands a pink and gold stone Byzantine church sat upon a rock. This church-on-a-rock symbolism refers to a Bible verse, in Matthew 16:16-19. She was buried in Carnmoney Cemetery, County Antrim, along with her mother and sister Ethel. Even after moving to London, Geddes claimed that her native identity never wavered as she says she was always "a Belfast woman".

Stained glass windows

Angel of Resurrection, St Ninnidh Church, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, 1912 Seaman Memorial Window, St Molaise Church, Monea, Northern Ireland, 1913 Faith, Hope and Charity Window, Presbyterian Church, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1913-1914 Dooner Memorial Windows, St Ann's Church, Dublin, Ireland, 1913 Margaret Horridge Memorial Window, Holy Trinity Church, Southport, Lancashire, 1914 Moorehouse Memorial Window, Karori Cemetery, Karori, New Zealand, 1914 Stewart Memorial Window, Presbyterian Christ Church, Dublin, Ireland, 1914-1916 Reed Memorial Window, St Anne's Church, Dublin, Ireland 1916 Cuthbert Memorial Window, Presbyterian Assembly Hall, Belfast, 1916 War Memorial Window, St Bartholomew's Church, Ottawa, Canada 1919 Crucifixion Window, St Luke's Church, Wallsend, Tyne & Wear, 1922 St Patrick’s and Colomba, Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, 1923 St Brendan Window, Currane Church, Achill, County Mayo, Ireland, 1924 Belfour Memorial Window, All Saints' Church, Laleham, Middlesex, England, 1925 The Fate of the Children of Lir, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1929–30 Sargent Memorial Window, St Michael Church, Northchapel, West Sussex, 1930 Wheeler Memorial Window, St Lawrence Church, Otterden, Kent, England, 1933 Crichton Memorial Window, Egremont Presbyterian Church, Wallasey, Lancashire, 1934 King Albert Memorial Window, Cathedral of St Martin, Ypres, Belgium, 1938 Harford Memorial Window, St Peter's Church, Lampeter, Wales, 1943 Madonna and Child, All Hallows, Greenford, London, 1951-1952 Lady Chapel windows, St Mildred's, Lee, London, 1951-1954