Richmond, Sir William Blake
Sir William Blake Richmond was an English portrait painter, sculptor and designer of stained glass and mosaic. He was the son of George Richmond, friend and admirer of William Blake, after whom he is named.
He studied at the Royal Academy Schools and also spent time with John Ruskin (1819-1900) quickly gaining a reputation as a portraitist, initially of children, but later of many of the leading personalities of the day, including Gladstone, Bismark, Florence Nightingale and William Morris, whom he knew well.
He also painted large mythological subjects, small landscapes from nature and worked in stained glass, fresco and sculpture.
His most conspicuous, and controversial, project was his work on the 1890s redecoration of St Paul’s Cathedral, London. His mosaics, which are widely appreciated today, were at the time severely criticised in the press and the art world, while the accompanying stained glass windows were unfortunately lost in the London Blitz. For both projects he worked closely with Harry J Powell (1855-1922) of James Powell & Sons in the development of new colours. The stained glass windows for St Paul’s differed from Powell’s other work in the reduced use of paint, the thickness of the glass and larger lead lines. Richmond’s experience at St Paul’s is clearly reflected in his work at St Mary’s, Stretton, Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire in 1896-98.
Richmond made a number of windows with Powells often working closely with the glass painter, William Aikman.
An example of Richmond’s work in stained glass from 1910 is shown in the image opposite.
Sources:
William Blake Richmond. An Artist’s Life 1842-1921 by Simon Reynolds (Michael Russell, 1995)
Arts & Crafts Stained Glass by Peter Cormack (Yale University Press for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2015)
Sir William Blake Richmond on Wikipedia