These are the results of Margaret Watts Hughes' ninenteenth-century experiments with stained glass and an "eidophone". She may have framed the one that looked most like a daisy, but she absolutely understood the aesthetic value of the far more extraordinary, abstract and conceptual pieces above, set into the windows of an orphange she ran in Islington decades before the experiments of the Post Impressionists. Yeah, I'm saying she was first, and you can read more Margaret Watts Hughes and her eidophone in the brilliant Public Domain review, which I have just discovered is a thing, here.
This is wild and awesome and WHAT did people think of it at the time??
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how well known her work was, but blimey, so much was being invented at the time, outside of any recognised artistic movement to contextualise her experiments, they may not have raised many eyebrows.
ReplyDeleteIt has just occured to me that I'm a twenty minute walk from Islington. I wonder if they're still there.
If I read this right, they might currently be in a museum in Wales? (Unless they're talking about colour reproductions of her works, I'm not entirely sure.)
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! And dammit.
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