Iw Arts Society November Lecture in Person Access

Lecture: Arts and Crafts Stained Glass in English Churches
Lecturer: Kirsty Hartsiotis
Tuesday 03 November 2026By far the most common type of Arts and Crafts work in England's churches is stained glass. Starting with one of the most ground-breaking schemes, Gloucester Cathedral's Lady Chapel by Christopher Whall, 1899, we'll explore the works of designers such as Henry Payne and Paul Woodroffe, and look, too, at some of the female artists of the Movement who excelled in glass, such as Theodora Salusbury, Caroline Townshend, the Rope cousins and Veronica Whall.Kirsty Hartsiotis was the curator of the decorative and fine art at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham from 2008 to 2023. She is currently a curator at Swindon Museums, where she also worked prior to 2008. At Cheltenham she looked after the Designated Arts and Crafts Movement collection, which includes the important private press archive, the Emery Walker Library. She's curated many exhibitions on the Arts and Crafts and Private Press Movements, including Crafting Change and Ernest Gimson: Observation, Imagination & Making, as well as on modern art movements, such as A Very British Art Revolution. Her current exhibition at Swindon is all about British studio pottery, Beneath the Surface: A Century of British Studio Ceramics, May 2026-Feb 2027. Passionate about sharing her deep love for and knowledge of the arts, she's also a freelance researcher, currently researching the work of Arts and Crafts designers in churches in the South West, and Arts and Crafts war memorials. She's also been an oral storyteller for over 20 years, and has published a number of collections of stories. She is a regular columnist for Cotswold Life, writes for diverse other publications on art history and folklore, and was the newsletter editor for the Society of Decorative Art Collections.