Henry Albert Payne RWS, also known as "Henry Arthur Payne", (1868 – 4 July 1940) was a British stained glass artist,

watercolour Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...

ist and painter of frescoes. Payne was one of the Birmingham Group of Artist-Craftsmen who formed around Joseph Southall and the Birmingham School of Art in the late nineteenth century. He was involved in several of the group's collective projects, most notably the decoration of the chapel at Madresfield Court, which numbers among the seminal achievements of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Early years and studies

Born in the King's Heath area of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

, Payne studied under

Edward R. Taylor __NOTOC__ Edward Richard Taylor RBSA (14 June 1838 – 11 January 1911) was an English artist and educator. He painted in both oils and watercolours. He became a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1879. Biography Taylor ta ...

at the Birmingham School of Art, where he was one of the students commissioned to paint a series of murals under Taylor's supervision for the redecoration of Birmingham Town Hall - the first "outward and visible sign of the rise to fame and importance of the Birmingham School".Breeze, George: "Decorative Painting" in Crawford, Alan (ed): ''By Hammer and Hand : the Arts and Crafts Movement in Birmingham'', Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1984 pp 62-65

Birmingham School educator

In 1899, Payne was appointed to the School's staff, initially as a teacher of drawing and painting, but increasingly concentrating through the 1890s on the design of stained glass. In 1900, he installed a glass kiln at the school and studied stained glass manufacture in London under

Christopher Whall Christopher Whitworth Whall (1849 – 23 December 1924) 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 t ...

so that, in the Arts and Crafts tradition, design and manufacture could be taught as an integrated process.Harrison, Martin: "Stained Glass: Windows on another World" in Crawford, Alan (ed): ''By Hammer and Hand : the Arts and Crafts Movement in Birmingham'', Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1984 pp 120-123 Among his outstanding students was Margaret Agnes Rope.

Stained glass and painting

From at least 1904 onwards, he established an independent business designing and manufacturing stained glass, producing large and notable works for churches such as E. S. Prior's St Andrew's, Roker, St Martin's, Kensal Rise, St Mary's, Madresfield and

J. L. Pearson John Loughborough Pearson (5 July 1817 – 11 December 1897) was a British Gothic Revival architect renowned for his work on churches and cathedrals. Pearson revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired in it a proficiency ...

's St Alban's, Bordesley. In common with most of the Birmingham Group he worked across a wide variety of media, producing book illustrations for the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft and interior decoration for the

Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts The Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts (1898–1966) was a company of modern artists and designers associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, founded by Walter Gilbert. The guild worked in metal, wood, plaster, bronze, tapestry, glass and ...

. Although most prolific in stained glass, Payne's most notable achievements were arguably in the field of decorative painting. Between 1902 and 1923 he worked on the wall paintings of the chapel at Madresfield Court near Malvern in Worcestershire. Painted as fresco in

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...

and sitting alongside work by other figures of the Birmingham Arts and Crafts movement such as

William Bidlake William Henry Bidlake MA, FRIBA (12 May 1861 – 6 April 1938) was a British architect, a leading figure of the Arts and Crafts movement in Birmingham and Director of the School of Architecture at Birmingham School of Art from 1919 until 1924. ...

, Georgie Gaskin and Charles March Gere, Madresfield Court is "not only Payne's most important scheme of decorative painting, but probably the most famous of all such Arts and Crafts schemes." File:West Window, Hook Church - geograph.org.uk - 685266.jpg, West Window, Hook Church: The "Good Shepherd" window by Henry Payne. A mix of a typical English country scene, with lambs and a stream, but with lions behind the wicker fence and a biblical king complete with what appears to be a zither. In 1908, he was commissioned to produce a wall painting for the later stages of the decoration of the Palace of Westminster. His work '' Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens'' - an allegory on the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

- now hangs in the Palace's East Corridor. Payne also painted landscapes in

, exhibiting at the Royal Academy from 1899 to 1935 and being elected a member of the

Royal Watercolour Society The Royal Watercolour Society is a British institution of painters working in watercolours. The Society is a centre of excellence for water-based media on paper, which allows for a diverse and interesting range of approaches to the medium of wa ...

in 1920.Henry A. Payne (1868 - 1940)
The Modernist Journals Project for students and scholars of modernism. Accessed 30 October 2018.

St Loe's Guild

In Amberley, Payne continued producing work in fresco and stained glass, and in 1912 established ''St Loe's Guild'', initially modelled in the Arts and Crafts tradition on the Bromsgrove Guild, though ultimately little more than a vehicle for his own works.

Personal life

In 1909, Payne and his family moved to Amberley in Gloucestershire, one of several significant Arts and Crafts figures to move to the Cotswolds."Henry Arthur Payne (1868-1940)" in Christian, John (ed): ''The Last Romantics: The Romantic Tradition in British Art - Burne-Jones to Stanley Spencer''. London, Lund Humphries Publishers, 1993

References

External links

Biography for Henry Payne
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
Henry Payne Stained Glass Work At Birmingham School Of Art
History West Midlands {{DEFAULTSORT:Payne, Henry 1868 births 1940 deaths Arts and Crafts movement artists English artists Artists from Birmingham, West Midlands Alumni of the Birmingham School of Art Academics of the Birmingham School of Art