Wilhelmina Geddes

Wilhelmina Margaret Geddes was born on her maternal grandparent's farm at Drumreilly Cottage in Leitrim on 25 May 1887.{{Cite journal|last=Gordon Bowe|first=Nicola|title=Wilhelmina Geddes|journal=Irish Arts Review (1984-1987)|date=August 2015|jstor=20492006|volume=4|issue=3|pages=2–3}} 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.{{Cite book|title=Wilhelmina Geddes: Life and Work|last=Gordon Bowe|first=Nicola|publisher=Four Courts Press|year=2015|isbn=9781846825323|location=Dublin}} 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.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

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{{Cite web|url=http://www.irishnews.com/lifestyle/2016/01/04/news/wilhelmina-geddes-window-on-a-remarkable-life-367169/|title=Wilhelmina Geddes: Window on a remarkable life|last=Hailes|first=Anne|date=4 January 2016|website=The Irish News}} along with her three younger sisters. She later moved to the Belfast School of Art.{{Cite news|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/wilhelmina-geddes-life-and-work-by-nicola-gordon-bowe-awkward-artist-of-many-colours-1.2506944|title=Wilhelmina Geddes: Life and Work, by Nicola Gordon Bowe: awkward artist of many colours|last=Foster|first=Roy|date=23 January 2016|work=Irish Times|access-date=22 November 2017}} 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{{Cite journal|last=Bowe|first=Nicola Gordon|date=1988|title=Wilhelmina Geddes, Harry Clarke, and Their Part in the Arts and Crafts Movement in Ireland|jstor=1503970|journal=The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts|volume=8|pages=58–79|doi=10.2307/1503970}} (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.{{Cite web|last=Devlin|first=Patrick|title=Wilhelmina Geddes (1887 - 1955): Stained Glass Artist|url=http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/index.php/home/viewPerson/535|access-date=2020-09-22|website=The Dictionary of Ulster Biography}} Purser, who went on to be Geddes' lifelong mentor, invited the young Geddes to join her in Dublin, working under the established stained glass artist William Orpen.{{Cite web|last=Devine|first=Ruth|date=2009|title=Geddes, Wilhelmina Margaret|url=https://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a3439|access-date=2020-09-22|website=Dictionary of Irish Biography - Cambridge University Press}}

Geddes contributed a watercolour illustration of a Ballad Seller with the Belfast Art Society in 1907.{{Cite book|last=Stewart|first=Ann M|title=Irish art societies and sketching clubs: index of exhibitors, 1870-1980, A-L|publisher=Four Courts Press|year=1997|isbn=1851823271|volume=1|location=Dublin|pages=269}} She was elected as an Associate of the Belfast Art Society's successor, the Ulster Academy of Arts, in 1933{{Cite book|last=Anglesea|first=Martyn|title=The Royal Ulster Academy of Arts: a centennial history|publisher=Royal Ulster Academy of Arts|year=1981|location=Belfast|pages=91}} before promotion to Honorary Academician in 1935.Anglesea, Martyn, (1981), p.98 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.

Geddes joined Purser at the acclaimed stained glass workshop called An Túr Gloine in 1910. The workshop was held in Dublin's Metropolitan School of Art. It was here that Geddes discovered her passion for the craftsmanship of stained glass artistry and created her most important works.

During her early years at An Túr Gloine, "Geddes’s originality shone out, and important commissions came from St Ann’s Church in Dawson Street, Dublin and the Presbyterian Church in Rathgar. Dogged by illness, she returned to Belfast before 1916 and lived between there and Dublin until moving in 1925 (as she had long wanted) to work in London at the Glass House in Fulham." While working at the Glass House Geddes instructed the Irish painter and stained glass artist Evie Hone.{{cite book |last=De Breffny |first=Brian |author-link= |date=1983 |title=Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia |url= |location=London |publisher=Thames and Hudson |page=95 |isbn=}} File:Plaque at Geddes Restaurants .jpg

Her work was considered pioneering and represented a rejection of the Late Victorian approach.Shirley Anne Brown. “Wilhelmina Geddes Ottawa Window”. Irish Arts Review 1994 Vol 10. 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 window was unveiled at St Bartholomew's by HRH the Prince of Wales. The window itself was commissioned by Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, in 1916.{{Cite web|url=http://www.stbartsottawa.ca/east_window.html|title=The Church of St.Bartholomew|access-date=16 November 2017}} This piece is located in Ontario, Canada.{{Cite book|title=Irish Arts Review Yearbook|last=Ann Brown|first=Shirley|year=1994}} 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. It is said by a critic that the colours used in this piece "give the window power and drama while strong, expressive drawing brings out the sense of action and facial expression."{{Cite book|title=Letter from WMG to SP|last=WMG, SP|publisher=Purser MSS, NLI|date=18 August 1924}} 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.

This window was commissioned by Canon Henry Dobbs, who was Chaplain to the Armed Forces. This piece was given by parishioners to commemorate World War I casualties from the congregation, as were two other windows, St Michael and St Raphael.{{Cite book|title=Irish Arts Review|last=Gordon Bowe|first=Nicola|year=2002|pages=118–121}} Gabriel stands hard and solid displaying a warrior like, rugged face. He wears a blue and white mantle, which he wraps around himself. In St Gabriel's hands he holds a branch given to him in Paradise and a mirror inscribed with an 'x', which signifies Christ in Greek. Geddes depicts the angel with a red halo and a stony-faced expression. The church in which this window remains is All Saints' Church, Blackrock, County Dublin. In 1996, St Gabriel and St Raphael were reunited in the church's south wall.

This piece was Geddes' last monumental work in stained glass and is located in the parish church of St Peter's Lampeter. It measures: 20 ft and 4ins high by 11 ft 6 ins wide. It was commissioned in 1937 by Sir George Arthur Harford as a memorial to his father, Sir John Charles Harford, although Geddes' declining health and the interruptions of the war delayed its completion until 1943, and its installation until 1946.{{Cite book|title=Stained glass at the church of St Peter, Lampeter.|last=Martin.|first=Crampin|date=2017|publisher=Sulien Books|others=Hammond, John.|isbn=9781910675052|oclc=982811784}} 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.

Despite the hardships of living in London during World War II, poverty, and ill health, Geddes "designed seventeen full-scale stained glass masterpieces, sixteen of which she completed"

Geddes died on 10 August 1955 in London of a pulmonary embolism.{{Cite web |date=2017-12-01 |title=Wilhelmina Geddes: Window on a remarkable life - The Irish News |url=https://www.irishnews.com/lifestyle/2016/01/04/news/wilhelmina-geddes-window-on-a-remarkable-life-367169/ |access-date=2024-10-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201030417/https://www.irishnews.com/lifestyle/2016/01/04/news/wilhelmina-geddes-window-on-a-remarkable-life-367169/ |archive-date=1 December 2017 }} She was buried in Carnmoney Cemetery, County Antrim,{{Cite web|last=Hailes|first=Anne|date=2016-01-21|title=Book review: Wilhelmina Geddes Her Life and Work|url=https://www.belfasttimes.co.uk/book-review-wilhelmina-geddes-her-life-and-work/|access-date=2020-09-22|website=Belfast Times}} along with her mother and sister Ethel.{{Cite news|title=Classified ad 59 -- no title.|date=13 August 1955|newspaper=The Irish Times}} Even after moving to London, Geddes claimed that her native identity never wavered as she says she was always "a Belfast woman".{{Cite news|url=https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/belfast-artist-who-created-some-of-the-citys-most-beautiful-stained-glass-windows-recognised-in-new-book-34210589.html|title=Belfast artist who created some of the city's most beautiful stained glass windows recognised in new book|last=Gordon Bowe|first=Nicola|date=18 November 2015|work=Belfast Telegraph|access-date=23 November 2017}}

File:The Crucifixion by Wilhelmina Geddes 1922.jpg]]

• 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

1. Nicola Gordon Bowe. “Wilhelmina Geddes 1887-1955: Her Life and Work – A Reappraisal”. Journal of Stained Glass. Vol XVIII, 1988
2. Nicola Gordon Bowe. “Wilhelmina Geddes : Life and Work. Four Courts Press. Pub 2015. {{ISBN|978-1-84682-532-3}}

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Category:1887 births

Category:1955 deaths

Category:Irish people of Scottish descent

Category:Alumni of Belfast School of Art

Category:Arts and Crafts movement artists

Category:Irish stained glass artists and manufacturers

Category:People educated at Methodist College Belfast

Category:Irish women artists

Category:Members of the Royal Ulster Academy