An exhibition marking the 75 years of glass work opened 1 May 2010 at Swansea Metropolitan University“s Welsh School of Architectural Glass, displaying designs, drawings, photographs, tools and artef…
An exhibition marking the 75 years of glass work opened 1 May 2010 at Swansea Metropolitan University“s Welsh School of Architectural Glass, displaying designs, drawings, photographs, tools and artefacts. Curated by Chris Bird-Jones, the museum“s masters glass programme director, the exhibition offers an exciting glimpse into the school“s archival materials. Glass was introduced to Swansea in 1935 by William Grant Murray, director of the city“s School of Art. One of the school“s first students was local glass manufacturer Howard Martin, who launched the first diploma in stained glass. Martin, who had become a world-renowned glass artist, and his cousin Hubert Thomas, then opened Celtic Studios, employing graduates and accepting commissions from across the world. By the 1970s, the course had adopted the title of Architectural Stained Glass, and, in 1976, the School of Art, along with the city“s College of Education and Technical College, was incorporated into the new West Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education. In 1993, Tim Lewis, the head of department at that time, launched a degree in Architectural Stained Glass, followed, six years later, by a Masters degree introduced by his successor Rodney Bender. In recent years, a new degree in Stained Glass Restoration and Conservation has been established. Students from the Welsh School of Architectural Glass have won an unprecedented number of awards for their work since the start of stained glass education 75 years ago. Head of the school, Dr. Ian Walsh, said: We are walking a tightrope between contemporary and traditional practice which makes us the only purely architecturally-based glass school in the world.” It“s this appeal that we want to maintain, both nationally and internationally, with Swansea remaining as a major global centre for the discipline. The anniversary will be marked with a series of events and exhibitions throughout 2010, with the stained glass display open to the public from 1 May to 20 June.