Willemina Ogterop (1881–1974) was a Dutch-American artist and

stained glass window 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 ...

designer of almost 500 windows in 80 locations.

Biography

Ogterop was born in

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

in 1881. After migrating to California in 1918 with her husband and four children, she worked in the Cummings Art Glass Studio in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

as their principal designer from 1928 to 1953, designing nearly 500 stained glass windows, and creating more than 200 works of art in other media. There are more than 80 venues, primarily Christian churches, in six states of the US which contain her stained glass works; however, the great majority of her windows are in 40 cities and towns in California, in addition to a total of 9 churches in the states of Nevada, Washington, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Louisiana. She donated three works of art to India, two of which can be found on public display: the woodcarving "Satyagraha" in the

National Gandhi Museum The National Gandhi Museum or Gandhi Memorial Museum is a museum located in New Delhi, India showcasing the life and principles of Mahatma Gandhi. The museum first opened in Mumbai, shortly after Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. The museum rel ...

in New Delhi and a stained glass plaque depicting a poem in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

by the Bengali poet

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

, which is in the Tagore Museum at

Visva Bharati University Visva-Bharati () is a public central university and an Institution of National Importance located in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it ''Visva-Bharati'', which means the communion of the w ...

, Santiniketan, Bolpur, West Bengal, India. The "Nehru Window" - honoring India's first prime minister,

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

- and delivered to him in 1946 by his sister, Mrs. Pandit, has never been located. In addition to her prodigious professional art work, she created hundreds of oil and water color paintings, ink, pencil and chalk drawings and woodcarvings - many of which remain today, treasured by her grand and great-grandchildren. Her earliest album of drawings was done in 1892 at the age of 11. She attended an art academy and a teacher training school in Amsterdam, before departing Holland, alone, at the age of 21 for South Africa. She lived in South Africa from 1903 to 1905, traveled to East Africa, Ceylon and Bombay, and lived in Indonesia from 1905 to 1907, before returning to Holland. She kept detailed journals all her life, which form the basis of our extensive knowledge of her fascinating, adventurous and highly productive life. Willemina Ogterop was a multiculturalist and internationalist who was active in many peace and humanitarian organizations. She wrote her "Philosophy of Living" and felt that Buddhism was the most sensible and inclusive religion of all.

References

1881 births 1974 deaths Dutch stained glass artists and manufacturers Dutch women artists Dutch emigrants to the United States Artists from Maastricht 20th-century American women artists American glass artists {{Netherlands-artist-stub