page_title: Christopher Whall
section_title: Early Arts and Crafts Movement
hierarchical_section_title: Christopher Whall / Career / Early Arts and Crafts Movement
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of Resurrection window (1893), St. Clement's Church, Boscombe, Dorset by Christopher Whall
context_page_description: Christopher Whitworth Whall 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 the modern history of stained glass.
context_section_description: Whall's career as an independent designer and maker of stained glass began in the late 1880s. This coincided with the emergence of the Arts and Crafts Movement through bodies such as the Art Workers' Guild and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. Whall was actively involved in these two organizations for thirty years and was an influential spokesman for the medium of stained glass.
  Indeed, through James Powell and Sons he was to exhibit at that Society's exhibitions at the New Gallery in 1888 and 1889. The architects with whom he was to work at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street, John Dando Sedding and Henry Wilson were also prominent within the Movement. It was John Dando Sedding who was to give Whall his first independent commission, for the Lady Chapel East window of St Mary's church in Stamford, Lincolnshire, which he completed in 1891.
  Whall’s participation in the early activities of the Arts and Crafts Movement came soon after a life-changing event that had taken place in 1887. In that year he had converted the cow-shed at his cottage in Dorking into a workshop, where he set about learning all the processes of the craft: cutting, painting, firing and glazing, so that, in future, no part of the making of his windows would be beyond his control. This was a direct protest against the division of labour, then almost universally prevalent among commercial manufacturers, which Whall and others saw as incompatible with the production of stained glass as an art rather than simply a trade. During his time at Dorking, Whall was assisted by Louis Davis and Reginald Hallward, both of whom were to have distinguished careers as stained glass artists.
  Whall's artistic style included using images from nature, a wide range of glass colours and textures, and new glass materials. Whall's application of white glass for his windows was unique for the time period. He was one of the earliest Arts and Crafts Movement stained glass artists to include slab glass in his work. Whall's work was considered groundbreaking in his use of Prior's "Early English" glass. The east window he created for St. Mary's Stamford was the first large stained glass window to contain the new material.
caption: Resurrection window (1893), St. Clement's Church, Boscombe, Dorset
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