Swansea Stained Glass Archive
The architectural stained glass course in Swansea exerted a transformational and international influence on the teaching and practice of stained glass over the last fifty years. The origins of the course date back to the 1920s and 30s, when the cousins Howard Martin and Hubert Thomas were students at Swansea School of Art. They set up a stained glass studio in Morriston, Swansea in 1934, and after a hiatus in the 1940s, their flourishing firm, Celtic Studios, became the first to make stained glass in any quantity in Wales. Howard Martin taught stained glass at Swansea College of Art, and under his leadership, and subsequently that of Tim Lewis, the stained glass course attracted students from the local area and from far afield. By the 1970s and 80s, students were coming from Europe, Canada and Japan to study stained glass in Swansea.
Tim Lewis encouraged new approaches to architectural stained glass being pioneered in Germany, inviting Ludwig Schaffrath, Johannes Schreiter, Joachim Klos and Jochem Poensgen to teach at the college. They designed windows that were made by students for Coychurch Crematorium from 1977–82. This experimental environment nurtured artists who augmented traditional stained glass techniques with new approaches necessary for the application of architectural stained glass to a wider range of buildings. From the 1970s, students from Swansea embarked on successful careers making a wide range of architectural stained glass across Britain and around the world.
The stained glass archive at Swansea College of Art is the most extensive collection relevant to the development of late twentieth-century architectural stained glass anywhere in Britain. Stained glass panels in the archive dating from the 1950s to the 2010s, many of which are panels from student exhibitions and competitions, including experimental early work by some of the leading artists working in stained glass over the last fifty years. Numerous works on paper include coloured designs and full-size cartoons, some of which were made by the prestigious German artists when visiting the college.
Initial work on the archive was undertaken by Marilyn Griffiths in the 2010s. Detailed cataloguing and photography of the stained glass panels was undertaken by Martin Crampin and Christian Ryan in 2024–5, funded by the Colwinston Trust. The catalogue also includes cartoons from Tim Lewis’ own studio, Glantawe Studios, and it is hoped that it will continue to expand in the future.
Other archives relevant to stained glass made in Swansea include the extensive correspondence from Celtic Studios, at West Glamorgan Archive Service in Swansea, and hundreds of their cartoons, and dozens of drawings, are kept at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. The National Library have accessioned them under the name ‘Celtic Yard Stained Glass (Firm)’.