Mobirise bootstrap layout builder

Stained Glass Design for Methodist Church, Colombo, Ceylon

29 x 20 cm
Watercolor
1930s.

Florence Camm

Florence Camm (1874-1960) was an English stained glass designer, painter and decorative metalworker. Born in Smethwick, her father opened a successful stained glass business in 1865. Camm studied intermittently at The Birmingham Municipal School of Art between 1892 and 1912. The teachers at the school were very supportive of women artists and allowed the girls access to live drawing classes, which was very unusual at the time. This training was one reason why Camm became so adept at drawing the human figure.

In 1912, Camm and her two brothers took over the family business which had by then become the foremost designer of stained glass in England with commissions coming from places as far away as America, Spain, New Zealand and India. Considered one of the most talented designers of stained glass of her period, Camm exhibited her work 43 times at the Royal Academy as well as in other major exhibitions in Britain and Europe. She never visited Ceylon but was commissioned to do these designs for the Methodist Church of Colombo in the 1930s.