Joseph Edward (Eddie) Nuttgens (1892 – 1982), in Germany spelt Nüttgens, was a stained glass designer in England who worked mainly on church windows.
Early life
Nuttgens was born in
Aachen
Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...
, the eldest child of six born to a German tailor's cutter, Heinrich/Henry Nuttgens, and an English mother, Teresa Mary Canham. His father's cousins included the brothers Theodor and Heinrich Nüttgens, painters of largely religious subjects. The family moved to London in 1895.
Nuttgens left school in 1906, aged 14 years, and learnt drawing in evening classes at Harrow Technical College and School of Art (now part of the
University of Westminster
, mottoeng = The Lord is our Strength
, type = Public
, established = 1838: Royal Polytechnic Institution 1891: Polytechnic-Regent Street 1970: Polytechnic of Central London 1992: University of Westminster
, endowment = £5.1 million ...
). After a couple of jobs involving drawing and stencil cutting,
his first job in stained glass was with Arthur Orr, for whom he was his first assistant in a new studio, and for whom he worked for five years.
In 1911, aged nineteen, he began studying 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 th ...
at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in
Southampton Row
The A4200 is a major thoroughfare in central London. It runs between the A4 at Aldwych, to the A400 Hampstead Road/ Camden High Street, at Mornington Crescent tube station.
Kingsway
Kingsway is a major road in central London, desig ...
,
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions.
Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...
, now the
Central School of Art and Design
The Central School of Art and Design was a public school of fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central School of Arts and Cr ...
, and from Whall he developed the idea that the design and craftsmanship of a piece of art should be executed so far as possible by one person, within a 'living tradition'. In this respect, Nuttgens was influenced by the philosophy and style of
Edward Burne Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...
,
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
,
and other members of the
Arts and Crafts Movement.
Career
After completing his training, Nuttgens worked at
Mary Lowndes
Mary Lowndes (1857–1929) was a British stained-glass artist who co-founded the stained glass studio and workshop Lowndes and Drury in 1897. She was an influential leader in the Arts and Crafts movement, not only for her stained glass work a ...
and
Alfred Drury
Edward Alfred Briscoe Drury (11 November 1856 – 24 December 1944) was a British architectural sculptor and artist active in the New Sculpture movement. During a long career Drury created a great number of decorative figures such as busts and ...
's
Glass House
The Glass House, or Johnson house, is a historic house museum on Ponus Ridge Road in New Canaan, Connecticut built in 1948–49. It was designed by architect Philip Johnson as his own residence. It has been called his "signature work".
The Glas ...
in Fulham under
Karl Parsons
Karl Bergemann Parsons (23 January 1884 – 30 September 1934) was a British stained glass artist associated with the Arts and Crafts movement.
Early life, 1884 – 1898
Parsons was born in Peckham in south London on 23 January 1884, the 12t ...
and
Martin Travers
Howard Martin Otho Travers (19 February 1886 – 25 July 1948) was an English church artist and designer.
Travers was born in Margate, Kent, educated at Tonbridge School, entered the Royal College of Art in 1904, and was awarded its Diploma in A ...
.
In addition to having the talent and skill to create whole works of his own, he was also able to adapt other people's drawings for translation into works of stained glass,
to produce designs for other glassmakers, including
James Powell and Sons
The firm of James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass, were London-based English glassmakers, leadlighters and stained glass window manufacturers. As ''Whitefriars Glass'', the company existed from the 17th century, but became well ...
, and to build glass works designed by other people, including
Herbert Hendrie
Herbert Hendrie (Manchester, 1887–1946) was an English stained glass artist. He is known for his strong simple designs with scintillating jewel-like effects. Among his best-known works are the fifteen windows for Kippen church and the tall st ...
.
He then moved to
Chipping Campden
Chipping Campden is a market town in the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. It is notable for its terraced High Street, dating from the 14th century to the 17th century. ("Chipping" is from Old English ''cēping'', 'market', 'market- ...
in Gloucestershire to work for
Paul Woodroffe
Paul Vincent Woodroffe (25 January 1875 – 7 May 1954) was a British book illustrator and stained-glass artist. Early life
Woodroffe was born in Madras (present-day Chennai), one of nine children of Francis Henry Woodroffe, a judge in the M ...
and then to Cobbler's Hill in the
Chiltern Hills
The Chiltern Hills is a chalk escarpment in England.
The area, northwest of London, covers stretching from Goring-on-Thames in the southwest to Hitchin in the northeast - across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshire. ...
. Later, he moved to North Dean, near
Princes Risborough
Princes Risborough () is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England, about south of Aylesbury and north west of High Wycombe. It lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, at the north end of a gap or pass through the Chilterns, the south end ...
, Buckinghamshire,
before setting up his own studio at Piggott's Hill near
High Wycombe
High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, south-southeast of Ayl ...
, Buckinghamshire.
By the outbreak of the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Nuttgens had been appointed as Head of the Stained Glass Department of the
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...
, but because he had a German father and had been born in Germany, he was
interned
Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...
during the war. In 1918, despite having an English mother and having lived in Britain since the age of three, he was asked to resign from his position at the Royal College.
Chipping Campden was the home of many artists and craftsmen, and Piggott's Hill was associated with many artists who, like Nuttgens, were Roman Catholics. It was near the studio where
Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cra ...
lived in later life, and through Gill's influence Nuttgens developed an interest in
Catholic Distributism,
an economic philosophy extolling the virtues of small enterprises and self-sufficiency. The church of St Peter, Gorleston, Norfolk, the only church designed by Gill, completed just before his death in 1937, contains an East Window made by Nuttgens and installed in 1963. Nuttgens was also associated with the
Art Workers Guild
The Art Workers' Guild is an organisation established in 1884 by a group of British painters, sculptors, architects, and designers associated with the ideas of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. The guild promoted the 'unity of a ...
, based on the precepts of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and the
Warham Guild __NOTOC__
The Warham Guild was an Anglican organization of craftsmen and artisans, founded to "augment the studies of the Alcuin Club and the directives of ''The Parson's Handbook''" with "the making of all the 'Ornaments of the Church and of the Mi ...
, which was dedicated to the production of church decorations and ornaments and was a Fellow of the
British Society of Master Glass Painters
The British Society of Master Glass Painters (BSMGP), was found in 1921, it is British trade association for the art and craft of stained glass. It promotes the trade of glass painting and staining in Britain.
BSMGP activities include: lectures ...
.
Nuttgens was an important influence on other stained glass makers including
John Piper and
Patrick Reyntiens
Nicholas Patrick Reyntiens OBE (; 11 December 1925 – 25 October 2021) was a British stained-glass artist, described as "the leading practitioner of stained glass in this country."
Personal life
Reyntiens was born in December 1925 at 68 Ca ...
, whose partnership began in his studio
and Gilbert Sheedy, who made a window for St Andrew's Church, High Wycombe in 1948
and another for Our Lady of the Angels Church, Nuneaton in 1949 in the style of Nuttgens. Sheedy subsequently set up a studio in South Weston, Oxfordshire and made several windows in Holy Trinity Church, Prestwood in 1970.
Reyntiens described his teacher, Nuttgens, as 'the best painter on glass of his own and subsequent generations'.
![Staplefield stained glass 6](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Staplefield_stained_glass_6.jpg)
Nuttgens had a long career, producing about 300 stained glass windows entirely by his own hand, as well as countless drawings, designs and glass work for other artists.
Most of his windows were for British churches, with a few being for churches all over the world. About two thirds were for Anglican churches, the remainder being for Roman Catholic churches. His work was coherent over time although his style showed considerable development across his long career.
His work from the beginning of his professional life at the end of the First World War to near the beginning of the Second World War carries traces of the style, as well as the philosophy, of the Arts and Crafts Movement, see for example, windows in
Nottingham Roman Catholic Cathedral
Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robin ...
(installed 1948) and St Teresa's Roman Catholic Church, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire (1938-1944).
During the Second World War there was little opportunity to work in stained glass and from time to time Nuttgens was obliged to take on manual labour.
After the Second World War, there was more demand for stained glass, especially for War Memorials and other post-war regeneration projects. These projects included, for example, replacing the windows in the bomb-damaged
St Etheldreda's Roman Catholic Church in Ely Place, London (1952) where Nuttgens made the large East window and his colleague, Charles F. Blakeman, made the side windows. When viewing its installation,
Bernard Rackham
Bernard Rackham (26 July 1876, Lambeth, London – 13 February 1964, Liss, Hampshire) was an English writer and lecturer on ceramics and stained glass and spent his career as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He is known for his pioneer ...
(then curator of the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
) described this East Window as an 'excellent illustration of the adaptation to modern ideas of a superb medieval art'. Some of Nuttgens post-war work, such as the south window in St Andrew's Parish Church,
Soham
Soham ( ) is a town and civil parish in the district of East Cambridgeshire, in Cambridgeshire, England, just off the A142 between Ely and Newmarket. Its population was 10,860 at the 2011 census.
History Archaeology
The region between Dev ...
, Cambridgeshire (1957) had a bold but colourful simplicity which indicated considerable progression from his pre-war style. Nuttgens gained an international reputation and made windows for a number of churches abroad including
St John's Cathedral in Hong Kong (1958).
He replaced the windows which had originally been created by William Morris's firm but which were destroyed during the
Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong
The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the Governor of Hong Kong, Mark Aitchison Young, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the British Crown colony of British Hong Kong, Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. The surr ...
. A few weeks before his death in 1982, Nuttgens completed the designs for a work based entirely on wild flowers
which had been commissioned by
Linda McCartney
Linda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney ( Eastman; September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, animal rights activist, vegetarian cookbook author and advocate, and entrepreneur. She was the keyboardist in th ...
(first wife of
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
). The work was completed by his son, Joe Ambrose Nuttgens.
Personal life
He married Kathleen Mary Clarke in 1924 and they had five children; she died in 1937. Nuttgens married Daphne Reid in 1940, sister of ‘The Colditz Story' author
Pat Reid
Patrick Robert Reid, (13 November 1910 – 22 May 1990) was a British Army officer and author of history. As a British prisoner of war during the Second World War, he was held captive at Colditz Castle when it was designated Oflag IV-C. Reid wa ...
, and they had eight more children.
Joseph E Nuttgens was the father of
Patrick Nuttgens
Patrick John Nuttgens CBE (2 March 1930 – 15 March 2004) was an influential English architect and academic.
Early life
Nuttgens was born in Whiteleaf, Buckinghamshire, the fourth of five children to Kathleen Mary (''née'' Clarke) an Irish ...
, architect and academic; Joseph Ambrose Nuttgens, stained glass designer; John Nuttgens, ceramicist; Susan Nuttgens, ceramicist; Alice Nuttgens, saddler and leather worker. He was also the grandfather of the cinematographer
Giles Nuttgens
Giles Nuttgens (born 1960), BSC is a British cinematographer, perhaps best known for the 2016 film '' Hell or High Water'', for which he received a 2017 BAFTA nomination and 2020 film Enola Holmes. Fans of independent art house fare may also ...
, the composer
Sandy Nuttgens
Alexander "Sandy" Nuttgens (born 1964), is a British composer and a member of the ''British Academy of Composers and Songwriters''.
He is principally known for scoring television programmes mainly in the realm of children's TV and documentaries. ...
, the broadcaster
Peg Alexander Peg Alexander is a journalist, broadcaster and former politician in the United Kingdom. She reports regularly on BBC local radio, appears on Jeremy Vine on Channel 5 and Steph’s Packed Lunch on Channel 4, and presents on BCB Radio in Bradford. She ...
and 41 further grandchildren, among them, artists, musicians, chefs, broadcasters, entrepreneurs, and naturalists.
After his father's death, a son, Joseph Ambrose Nuttgens, continued as a stained glass designer at North Dean and at Piggott's Hill.
File:JE Nuttgens, Left Light (Detail) St Etheldreda's Church.jpg, JE Nuttgens Left Light (Detail), East Window, St Etheldreda's Church, Ely Place, London.
File:JE Nuttgens, Right Light, East Window, St Etheldreda's Church .jpg, JE Nuttgens Right Light (Detail). East Window, St Etheldreda's Church, Ely Place, London.
File:JE Nuttgens, Central Light (Detail), East Window, St Etheldreda's Church.jpg, JE Nuttgens. Side Light (Detail), East Window, St Etheldreda's Church, Ely Place, London
File:JE Nuttgens, Top Left Light (Detail), East Window, St Etheldreda's Church.jpg, JE Nuttgens, Top Left Light (Detail), East Window, St Etheldreda's Church, Ely Place, London
File:JE Nuttgens, Top Right Light (Detail), East Window, St Etheldreda's Church.jpg, JE Nuttgens, Top Right Light (Detail), East Window, St Etheldreda's Church, Ely Place, London.
File:JE Nuttgens, Top Central Light (Detail), East Window, St Etheldreda's Church.jpg, JE Nuttgens, Top Central Light (Detail), East Window, St Etheldreda's Church, Ely Place, London.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nuttgens, Joseph Edward
20th-century English artists
English designers
German expatriates in England
1892 births
1982 deaths
People from Aachen
German stained glass artists and manufacturers
20th-century English male artists