Thomas Denny, Wisdom window (2012), St. Catharine's College Chapel, Cambridge.

Photo: James O Davies - Reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge

Thomas Denny, detail of Wisdom window (2012), St. Catharine's College Chapel, Cambridge.

Photo: James O Davies - Reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge

St. Catharine's College Chapel, Cambridge

Address

St. Catharine's College Chapel, Queens' Lane, Cambridge CB2 1RL

Recommended by

Phillida Shaw (10)

Highlight

The ‘Wisdom’ window, in memory of Neville Burston, a College Alumnus.

Artist, maker and date

Thomas Denny, 2012

Reason for highlighting

One of Tom’s smaller commissions, which shows how this artist/painter intimately researches the local population and the landscape, into which he integrates the Biblical or poetic subject matter of his windows.

A window inviting reflection: The Tree of Life, central in the two light window, focuses attention on the watery Cambridgeshire landscape, where Wisdom stands at the gate, ready to meet and accompany human figures. In the foreground a bicycle refers to the youth of the City, while the cobbles and fossils in the foreground remind us of the past and the College’s own historic curio collections.

The artist’s painting, staining, acid etching techniques on several layers of glass give this window a three dimensional effect as the figures walk away from the viewer.

Other comments

Thomas Denny’s address at the dedication ceremony can be found here Wisdom Tree window dedication address – St Catherine’s College Chapel.

Opposite Thomas Denny’s window is an interesting war memorial window – ‘Dream of St Catherine’ – by Leonard A Pownall (1923).

Artist/maker notes

Thomas Denny (b. 1956) is one of the most distinguished of contemporary artists, whose work can be found in cathedrals and churches throughout Britain. He studied painting at Edinburgh College of Art and exhibited in London and New York, before concentrating on stained glass. He works with materials and techniques that are largely the same as those used in the fourteenth century, along with the nineteenth century technique of acid etching flashed glass. This, he believes, helps to incorporate his windows in their settings. He notes that the “treatment of imagery can be very different, but colour, texture and the intransigence of lead and glass all make connections with what is already there, whether it is other stained glass, or the forms and surfaces of surrounding architecture and artefacts. Stained glass must be interesting and beautiful in its own right, but it must always acknowledge its context.”

Source : Tom Denny website