*Wilhelmina Geddes (1887-1955),Faith, Hope and Charity,a stained glass window, from St Paul's Church, St John's Hill Battersea, and made by Charles F Blakeman (1907-1989), with three two-part tracery panels, a quatrefoil panel and four spandrels, inscribed 'This window was designed by the late W. M. Geddes and made by C. F. Blakeman, 1956', also with cleaning instructions,lower panels 52cm wide, 42cm highcentral panel 52cm wide, 80cm highside panels 52cm wide, 95cm highcentral roundel 32cm wide, 33cm hightwo triangular larger 26 x 19cm two triangular smaller 21 x 11.5cm (11)Wilhelmina Geddes (1887-1955)Ulster-born Wilhelmina Geddes is widely regarded as one of the outstanding designers and makers of stained glass working in the first half of the twentieth century. Trained at Belfast Art School and the Metropolitan College of Art in Dublin, Geddes absorbed the expressive and technical principles of the Arts & Crafts Movement, translating these into a uniquely powerful personal idiom.Some of her earliest work was shown at the important Exhibition of British and Irish Decorative Arts at the Louvre, Paris, in 1914. Subsequently she was given the prestigious commission for a war memorial window (1919) in the Governor-General’s Church (St Bartholomew’s) in Ottawa. Made at the ‘Tower of Glass’ studio in Dublin, it was exhibited to great acclaim in London before its installation in Canada. Moving to London in 1925, she thereafter worked at the renowned ‘Glass House’ studios (Messrs Lowndes & Drury) in Fulham, London. Amongst the commissions she completed in the inter-war period, were windows for churches at Laleham in Middlesex (1926), Northchapel in Sussex (1930), Otterden in Kent (1933) and for St Martin’s Cathedral at Ypres, Belgium (1938). These and other works profoundly impressed younger artists such as Evie Hone and John Piper.The 3-light window depicting Virtues (Faith, Hope and Charity) was commissioned by the Rev. Chad Varah, a radical Anglican priest (and future founder of the Samaritans) who had been appointed rector of St Paul’s Church, St John’s Hill, Battersea (near Clapham Junction) in 1949. Intent on restoring and embellishing the church after war damage, Varah had contacted John Piper, seeking a recommendation for a modern stained glass artist. He was advised to contact Geddes who, despite poor health and struggling with work on two other commissions for London suburban churches – All Hallows, Greenford (1951-2) and St Mildred’s, Lee (1953-4) – agreed to make a design.By now, Geddes’ style had evolved into a remarkably distilled form of monumental expressionism, which was quite unique in British stained glass and which entailed subtle choices of coloured glass and intricate craft processes in the glass-painting. With the assistance of two young craftsmen, Donald Drury and Charles Blakeman, Geddes was able to finish the windows for Greenford and Lee, but her deteriorating eyesight and other ailments made it impossible for her to complete the full-size working cartoons for Battersea. After collapsing in the street and being admitted to St Pancras Hospital, Wilhelmina Geddes died, aged 68, on 10 August 1955.It was decided that the Battersea window, Geddes’ final commission, should be completed from the artist’s designs by Charles Blakeman, who was also working at the Fulham Glass House. Blakeman admired Geddes’ work immensely, having closely observed her design and craft techniques as she carried out her Greenford and Lee projects, and he was determined to do justice to her ideas for the window. The artist’s biographer, the late Dr Nicola Gordon Bowe, recorded that by ‘using Geddes’s sketches and cartoons, however illegible, Blakeman was able to adhere to her designs relatively faithfully while still producing a window clearly his own’. The window was finally unveiled in 1956, when it was seen by Rev. Chad Varah, who was ‘highly impressed’ by it.The window depicts Faith, Hope and Charity as three female angelic figures, whose seated forms fill each lancet. At the base of the window are two of the Evangelists and, in the centre, a scene of the Annunciation. Above the figure of Faith is a vignette of St Thomas and Christ, while Hope holds a miniature scene of Noah’s Ark and above Charity is a figure of St Mary Magdalene. The upper tracery lights contain depictions of the Moon and Sun with, in the centre, the Christ Child. An inscription in the right-hand light records that ‘THIS WINDOW WAS DESIGNED BY THE LATE W. M. GEDDES AND MADE BY C. BLAKEMAN 1956'.When St Paul’s church was amalgamated with another parish in the 1970s, the Geddes-Blakeman window was obscured by internal alterations to the building and was effectively inaccessible. The church was finally declared redundant in recent years and later converted to housing. As part of the structural alterations, the stained glass window was removed. Literature: Nicola Gordon Bowe, David Caron and Michael Wynne, 'Gazetteer of Irish Stained Glass', Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1988;Nicola Gordon Bowe, 'Wilhelmina Geddes, Life and Work', Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2015;Peter Cormack, 'Arts & Crafts Stained Glass', Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2015. We are very grateful to Peter Cormack for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.*Artist's Resale Right may apply to this lot. Condition report: All the panels have been kept in plastic boards, taped both sides. Three lowest panels - structurally sound in the lead frames. No visible defects or cracks. Faith - two cracks to panels. Fourth panel from the bottom on the left - crack to the base of the wing. Fourth panel from the right on the bottom (knee) this panel has a crack.Hope and Charity - both appear without cracks. Both are structurally sound in the lead. All three slightly bowed. Left hand top - yellow crescent moon - cracked panel. The other top panels again appear to be OK. Lead work good on all others.
