Joseph E Nuttgens, east window (1952), Catholic Church of St Etheldreda, Ely Place, London.

Photo: Peter Hildebrand

Joseph E Nuttgens, detail of east window (1952), Catholic Church of St Etheldreda, Ely Place, London.

Photo: Peter Hildebrand

Catholic Church of St Etheldreda, London EC1

Address

Catholic Church of St Etheldreda, 14 Ely Place, London EC1N 6RY

Recommended by

Caroline Swash FMGP (10)

Highlight

East window

Artist, maker and date

Joseph E Nuttgens, 1952

Reason for highlighting

Eddie Nuttgens was a very fine artist and this window is generally regarded as his finest. One in which he ‘let his imagination take command and soar’. It is also in perfect harmony with its setting, so that visitor and worshipper alike gain an overwhelming sense of being in a powerful and sacred space.

Other comments

Nuttgens east window is well supported by nave and west windows by Charles Blakeman. He was an accomplished landscape painter and stone carver, as well as a fine stained glass artist.

The nave windows, completed between 1956 and 1963, are at once serious and lively, the scenes possess the spontaneous vividness of a painter at ease with his art.

In 1964 Blakeman added a west window, while in the crypt there is colourful abstract glass, paintings and sculpture by May and Charles Blakeman.

Further reading: The 100 Best Stained Glass Sites in London by Caroline Swash (Malvern Arts Press, 2015)

Artist/maker notes

Joseph Edward (Eddie) Nuttgens (1892 – 1982) was born in Aachen, the son of a German father and English mother who moved to London in 1895. He developed a talent for drawing from a young age. However, being born in Germany, he was interned during the First World War and this interfered with his training and his ambition to become a portrait artist. His entry into the world of stained glass happened by chance, his drawings being seen by Arthur Orr, a stained glass artist living in Harrow, to whom he became assistant. His early influence was Burne-Jones, Christopher Whall and, at the London Central School of Art, Karl Parsons; a later influence being Eric Gill who was his neighbour.

Source: Joseph Nuttgens website