Stained glass artist to speak

Press, 13 November 1985, Page 22

Stained glass artist to speak

A - lecture by an internationally renowned stained glass artist, Stephen Taylor, will be given at the C.S.A. Gallery on Sunday. Stephen Taylor was born and educated in England. He first trained as a painter at Wimbledon School of Art and has always considered his work from that viewpoint, using glass as his medium. A Diploma of Association of the Royal College of Art in stained glass followed. He is also a Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy.

On graduation from the Royal College of Art, he became personal assistant to Lawrence Lee who had led the design team for the nave windows at Coventry Cathedral and then personal assistant to John Hayward

for the Blackburn Cathedral lantern windows.

He emigrated to Canada in 1968 and worked with Canada’s foremost stained glass artist, Yvonne Williams, for a number of years while at the same time establishing his own glass studio. In the 18 years he worked in Canada he became accepted as one of the most noted glass designers and teachers in the country. Major glass commissions have included the Church of the Messiah and the Church of the Holy Trinty in Toronto. Examples of his work, other than ecclesiastical, have been installed in the homes of private collectors, hospitals, a school and even a pottery supply showroom. He has been the subject of two films. He has held the position of lecturer at McMaster University, Hamilton, On-

tario, artist in residence at Humber College, Toronto, and glass lecturer in Georgian College, Barrie, Ontario. Throughout this period many lectures and workshops were conducted in Canada, the United States and Great Britain.

Stephen Taylor and his French-Canadian wife, Denise Belanger, a well known Canadian glassblower, migrated to New Zealand this year and want to establish a combined stained glass and glass blowing studio in the general area of Christchurch.

The slide lecture will offer work of various artists by whom Stephen Taylor has been influenced or studied or trained with plus a selection of his own architectural stained glass. The lecture will begin at 3 p.m.