Henry Albert Payne RWS, also known as "Henry Arthur Payne", (1868 – 4 July 1940) was a British

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

artist,

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

ist and painter of

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

es. Payne was one of the Birmingham Group of Artist-Craftsmen who formed around

Joseph Southall Joseph Edward Southall RWS NEAC RBSA (23 August 1861 – 6 November 1944) was an English painter associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. A leading figure in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century revival of painting in tempera, Sout ...

and the

Birmingham School of Art The Birmingham School of Art was a municipal art school based in the centre of Birmingham, England. Although the organisation was absorbed by Birmingham Polytechnic in 1971 and is now part of Birmingham City University's Faculty of Arts, Design a ...

in the late nineteenth century. He was involved in several of the group's collective projects, most notably the decoration of the chapel at

Madresfield Court Madresfield Court is a country house in Malvern, Worcestershire, England. The home of the Lygon family for nearly six centuries, it has never been sold and has passed only by inheritance since the 12th century; a line of unbroken family ownersh ...

, which numbers among the seminal achievements of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Early years and studies

Born in the

King's Heath Kings Heath (historically, and still occasionally King's Heath) is a suburb of south Birmingham, England, four miles south of the city centre. Historically in Worcestershire, it is the next suburb south from Moseley on the A435, Alcester road. ...

area of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, Payne studied under

Edward R. Taylor __NOTOC__ Edward Richard Taylor RBSA (14 June 1838 – 11 January 1911) was an English artist and educator. He painted in both oils and watercolours. He became a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1879. Biography Taylor ta ...

at the

, where he was one of the students commissioned to paint a series of murals under Taylor's supervision for the redecoration of

Birmingham Town Hall Birmingham Town Hall is a concert hall and venue for popular assemblies opened in 1834 and situated in Victoria Square, Birmingham, England. It is a Grade I listed building. The hall underwent a major renovation between 2002 and 2007. It no ...

- the first "outward and visible sign of the rise to fame and importance of the Birmingham School".Breeze, George: "Decorative Painting" in Crawford, Alan (ed): ''By Hammer and Hand : the Arts and Crafts Movement in Birmingham'', Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1984 pp 62-65

Birmingham School educator

In 1899, Payne was appointed to the School's staff, initially as a teacher of drawing and painting, but increasingly concentrating through the 1890s on the design of

. In 1900, he installed a glass kiln at the school and studied stained glass manufacture in London under

Christopher Whall Christopher Whitworth Whall (1849 – 23 December 1924) was a British stained-glass artist who worked from the 1880s and on into the 20th century. He is widely recognised as a leader in the Arts and Crafts Movement and a key figure in t ...

so that, in the

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

tradition, design and manufacture could be taught as an integrated process.Harrison, Martin: "Stained Glass: Windows on another World" in Crawford, Alan (ed): ''By Hammer and Hand : the Arts and Crafts Movement in Birmingham'', Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1984 pp 120-123 Among his outstanding students was Margaret Agnes Rope.

Stained glass and painting

From at least 1904 onwards, he established an independent business designing and manufacturing stained glass, producing large and notable works for churches such as E. S. Prior's St Andrew's, Roker, St Martin's, Kensal Rise, St Mary's, Madresfield and

J. L. Pearson John Loughborough Pearson (5 July 1817 – 11 December 1897) was a British Gothic Revival architect renowned for his work on churches and cathedrals. Pearson revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired in it a proficiency ...

's St Alban's, Bordesley. In common with most of the Birmingham Group he worked across a wide variety of media, producing book illustrations for the

Birmingham Guild of Handicraft Birmingham Guild of Handicraft was an Arts and Crafts movement, Arts and Crafts organisation operating in Birmingham, England, established at the end of the 19th century. History The Guild began as a loose part of the Birmingham Kyrle Society, t ...

and interior decoration for the

Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts The Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts (1898–1966) was a company of modern artists and designers associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, founded by Walter Gilbert. The guild worked in metal, wood, plaster, bronze, tapestry, glass and ...

. Although most prolific in stained glass, Payne's most notable achievements were arguably in the field of decorative painting. Between 1902 and 1923 he worked on the wall paintings of the chapel at

near

Malvern Malvern or Malverne may refer to: Places Australia * Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide * Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne * City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourne * Electoral district of Malvern, an e ...

in Worcestershire. Painted as

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...

and sitting alongside work by other figures of the Birmingham Arts and Crafts movement such as

William Bidlake William Henry Bidlake MA, FRIBA (12 May 1861 – 6 April 1938) was a British architect, a leading figure of the Arts and Crafts movement in Birmingham and Director of the School of Architecture at Birmingham School of Art from 1919 until 1924 ...

Georgie Gaskin Georgina Evelyn Cave Gaskin (née France) (8 December 1866 – 29 October 1934), known as Georgie Gaskin, was an English jewellery and metalwork designer, as well as an illustrator. With her husband Arthur Gaskin, Georgie was one of the ori ...

and

Charles March Gere Charles March Gere Royal Academician, RA Royal Watercolour Society, RWS (5 June 1869 – 3 August 1957) was an England, English Painting, painter, Illustration, illustrator of books, and stained glass and embroidery designer associated with the ...

, Madresfield Court is "not only Payne's most important scheme of decorative painting, but probably the most famous of all such Arts and Crafts schemes." File:West Window, Hook Church - geograph.org.uk - 685266.jpg, West Window, Hook Church: The "Good Shepherd" window by Henry Payne. A mix of a typical English country scene, with lambs and a stream, but with lions behind the wicker fence and a biblical king complete with what appears to be a zither. In 1908, he was commissioned to produce a wall painting for the later stages of the decoration of the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...

. His work '' Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens'' - an allegory on the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

- now hangs in the Palace's East Corridor. Payne also painted

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

s in

, exhibiting at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

from 1899 to 1935 and being elected a member of the

Royal Watercolour Society The Royal Watercolour Society is a British institution of painters working in watercolours. The Society is a centre of excellence for water-based media on paper, which allows for a diverse and interesting range of approaches to the medium of wa ...

in 1920.Henry A. Payne (1868 - 1940)
The Modernist Journals Project for students and scholars of modernism. Accessed 30 October 2018.

St Loe's Guild

Amberley Amberley may refer to: Places Australia *Amberley, Queensland, near Ipswich, Australia *RAAF Base Amberley, a Royal Australian Air Force military airbase United Kingdom * Amberley, Gloucestershire, England * Amberley, Herefordshire, England ...

, Payne continued producing work in fresco and stained glass, and in 1912 established ''St Loe's Guild'', initially modelled in the Arts and Crafts tradition on the Bromsgrove Guild, though ultimately little more than a vehicle for his own works.

Personal life

In 1909, Payne and his family moved to

in Gloucestershire, one of several significant Arts and Crafts figures to move to the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

."Henry Arthur Payne (1868-1940)" in Christian, John (ed): ''The Last Romantics: The Romantic Tradition in British Art - Burne-Jones to Stanley Spencer''. London, Lund Humphries Publishers, 1993

References

External links

Biography for Henry Payne
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
Henry Payne Stained Glass Work At Birmingham School Of Art
History West Midlands {{DEFAULTSORT:Payne, Henry 1868 births 1940 deaths Arts and Crafts movement artists English artists Artists from Birmingham, West Midlands Alumni of the Birmingham School of Art Academics of the Birmingham School of Art