The 2009 American Glass Guild Conference
July 16-20, 2009
Buffalo, New York
2009 Conference
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Dr. Bronwyn Hughes
Treasures Down Under: Australia’s Stained Glass
Only two centuries ago white settlement of Australia began inauspiciously as a distant jail for Britain’s felonry, but the arrival of free settlers looking for a new life soon changed the country’s prospects for a less bleak future. The pioneering spirit of the colonists took them from the small towns of Sydney and Hobart out into ‘the bush’ where they forged a hard-won living, mainly from the land.
Australia’s earliest stained glass was not installed until more prosperous times arrived in the mid-nineteenth century when the discovery of gold fuelled the construction of permanent buildings, often on a grand scale. By the 1880s civic buildings, private residences and churches included remarkable examples of stained glass across the country and sometimes in most unlikely and inhospitable places.
At first, most stained glass was imported but enterprising men soon set up local manufactories, competing for the important commissions on offer. This paper examines the stained glass of Australia’s principal artists and firms that emerged from the 1860s and the society in which they operated; through the architecture, religion, cultural and economic values of the time.
Comparison is made not only between different regions of Australia but also with nineteenth-century glass in Europe and America. Post-colonial Australia and America have much in common, and the arts, including stained glass, reflect their European roots and close ties. But there are significant differences too and, in the late nineteenth century, new technical developments in American glass created a sudden divergence in concept and composition that continued over the twentieth century.
The presentation concludes with a brief look at Australian stained glass in the twentieth century when its relevance to architecture was questioned and social transformation - from a perceived mono-culture to a multi-cultural country after the Second World War - would give unexpected new impetus to stained glass.
About Dr. Bronwyn Hughes
BA (Ceramic Design); Grad Dip. (Ceramic Design); Dip Ed.; MA; PhD
Dr. Bronwyn Hughes has spent thirty years as a glass artist, lecturer and historian of glass. Since the 1990s she has increasingly focussed on documenting Australian stained glass and the importance of historical understanding as one tool to ensure successful conservation of glass for future generations. Since completing her PhD she has commenced a book on one of Australia’s leading stained glass artists, William Montgomery (1850-1927) and is editor of the first encyclopedia of Australian stained glass makers, a project that is expected to be on-going for the next five years.
Contact details:
Dr. Bronwyn Hughes
Hughes Hughes Associates
Stained Glass Consultants
50 Two Bays Road
Mount Eliza Vic. 3930
Australia
Home/office phone: +61 3 9787 2762
Fax: +61 3 9787 0801
Email: bdhughes@bigpond.net.au
