During his sixty-year career as a stained glass designer/maker Henry Holiday produced hundreds of designs for windows. He was a major contributor to the renaissance in stained glass design that took place in England during the 1860s.
In the late 1850s and early 1860s James Powell & Sons turned to progressive artists, such as Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, E. J. Poynter, and Albert Moore, to provide them with designs for stained glass. In 1862, with the formation of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., Burne-Jones began to design exclusively for them. Powell's initially asked Moore to be Burne-Jones successor as its principal designer, but Moore was unwilling to do this and instead suggested his friend Henry Holiday. In December 1862 Mr. Moberly, the head of James Powell & Sons stained-glass works, approached Holiday and asked him to produce some designs for them. Holiday, who had never done anything of this kind before, accepted the commission. Holiday began work at the office of his friend, the architect William Burges. Burges gave him valuable assistance with technical points, and allowed Holiday to consult his books on stained glass.
Holiday made designs for the Annunciation, the Ascension, and the Pentecost. Although these designs were not executed, Powell's was satisfied with the work and later placed another two commissions. The originality and freshness of Holiday’s designs, which were free of any contrived Gothic mannerisms, impressed them. The designs were admired so much, in fact, that in the autumn of 1863 Holiday was visited by the elderly Nathanael Powell who said "If I would make designs for them only, they would guarantee as much work as I could do...the arrangement should be terminated at the wish of either of us" (Hadley, Holiday, 50) Although this exclusive contract was suspended in 1864, Holiday continued to be Powell's principal stained-glass designer until the end of 1890. This relationship only ceased, in fact, when Holiday opened his own stained-glass works in Hampstead in January 1891.
The early windows Holiday designed for Powell's are primarily small biblical scenes that frequently fill only the centre of a light, with the remainder consisting of pressed or painted quarries. Occasionally the scenes form a band across the centre of the window, or are grouped together to fill most of the light. Larger figures began to appear in his designs as early as February 1864, however. At least initially Holiday's designs were at the mercy of the extremely uneven quality of execution carried out by James Powell & Sons. Holiday's small figure designs suffered somewhat by being incorporated into windows filled with Powell's dull and coarse machine-pressed quarries. Holiday did his best, however, to incorporate his designs into the surrounding pattern work to produce a pleasing decorative arrangement. Whenever a larger than usual amount of money was available Powell's would forgo the machine-made glass and use only their best and richest muff glass.
Holiday became part of a progressive elite among stained-glass designers whose aim was to break out of the stylistic limitations of the early phases of the Gothic Revival instituted by A. W. N. Pugin. A turning point in Holiday's career came after his return from Italy in 1867 when he began to adopt a "modernist" approach to design because of what he considered a lack of vitality in the current decorative arts in England (Cormack, Holiday, 1-2). He deliberately avoided the archaism seen in the work of some of his peers and concentrated on producing designs that were strong and dramatic. After this time he was less influenced by Mediaeval sources and more by Classical and Renaissance art. By 1871 this marked change in approach can be noted in Holiday's windows for Powell's, likely at Holiday's insistence once his reputation as a leading stained-glass designer became established. The tiny Gothic figure scenes set in a vast quarry background were replaced by large and clearly read figures in cool tones clad in classical draperies. As the Hadleys have remarked:
Windows of the 1860's are to modern eyes particularly enjoyable, as artists and craftsmen revelled in the quality and colour range of the glass which was newly available, and commercial pressures had not yet built up enough to remove the sense of freshness and enthusiasm. The best designs are clear and direct, composed in a limited number of planes, with perspective implied rather than directly stated. In Holiday's own words 'the limitations of decorative art ought to be a source of inspiration, not hindrance.' Today we may disagree with the opinion of Holiday in old age, who preferred his later and more complex designs. [55-56]
In the late 1860s Holiday also collaborated with the firm of Heaton, Butler and Bayne for some of his most important commissions, as he was dissatisfied with the standard of the execution of some of his designs by Powell's. As time went on Holiday became more interested not just in the design, but also in the technical aspects of stained-glass production. In 1891 Holiday set up his own stained-glass workshop at 20, Church Row in Hampstead, which at last gave him freedom and control, not only in glass design, but also in execution, thus liberating him from the restrictions that are inevitable when working for a commercial firm. He also began to make his own pot-metal glass that allowed him to improve the qualities of colour and depth in his windows. In 1906 Holiday closed down his stained glass works in Hampstead and began collaborating with the firm of Lowndes & Drury for whom he provided designs. In 1920 he transferred the execution of his stained glass to the studio of Edward Liddall Armitage. Holiday continued to execute stained-glass designs until 1926.
A writer for The Studio writing on Holiday’s decorative work noted some distinctive qualities about the style of Holiday’s stained glass:
One thing that is especially notable is the in ingenuity with which he arranges the lines of the leading. The leads, as he treats them, become actual parts of his pattern and fill in the plainer spaces in his design with a tracery of carefully ordered lines; they are used in the place of architectural details, commonly painted on the glass, and they give sufficient variety to the surroundings of the figures without overloading the design with unnecessary ornament. Another thing that can be commended is his avoidance of pictorial effects; he does not suggest by light and shade contrasts that the figures are in relief, or that they are affected by varieties of atmospheric tone. He draws rightly the distinction between a picture and a decoration, and does not fall into the mistake by which so many other glass designers have been misled of attempting arrangements which, though they are legitimate enough on painted canvas, are out of place in a window, which must, of course, be treated as a flat surface. Characteristically, too, he uses habitually small pieces of glass in preference to those of large size which are too often employed by the designers of the pictorial window, and in this way he not only escapes the necessity for much actual painting on the glass itself but secures also that jewel –like effect of varied color, which is so satisfying to the well-designed piece of stained-glass work. [110-11]
Bibliography
Cormack, Peter. Henry Holiday 1839–1927. London: William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, 1989, 1-2.
Hadley, Dennis and Joan Hadley. “Henry Holiday, 1839-1927.” The Journal of Stained Glass XIX (1989-90): 48-69.
Holiday, Henry. “Modernism in Art.” The Builder LVIII (March 22, 1890): 212-15.
“The Decorative Work of Mr. Henry Holiday.” The Studio XLVI (1909): 106-15.
Waters, William and Alastair Carew-Cox. Angels & Icons. Pre-Raphaelite Stained Glass 1850-1870. Abbots Morton, Worcester: Seraphim Press, 2012.
Created 21 January 2023