Remembering Ervin Bossányi, Stained Glass Artist

 

Yesterday I took part in an event held at the Liszt Institute dedicated to Hungarian-born artist Ervin Bossányi, best known for his stained glass windows at Canterbury Cathedral.

Ervin Bossányi (1891-1975) was born in a small village in southern Hungary and educated in Budapest. He worked as a painter and sculptor mainly in northern Germany until his forced emigration in 1934. In due course, he would establish a new career as a notable stained glass artist in England. He created stained glass windows for Senate House Library, University of London, the Tate Gallery (‘The Angel Blesses the Women Washing the Clothes’), the Victoria and Albert Museum (‘Noli me tangere’), as well as for York Minster, the President Woodrow Wilson memorial chapel in Washington National Cathedral, Washington DC and Canterbury Cathedral, among others.

Art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen, founding director of Insiders/Outsiders, led a panel discussion with family members, stained glass experts and others to explore the extraordinary life and unique cultural contribution of this still too little-recognised artist.

Panel participants:

• Ilona Bossányi: granddaughter of Ervin Bossányi
• Revd Jonathan Evens: Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell, who writes regularly on visual arts and has a special interest in émigré artists who worked for the Church
• Alfred Fisher MBE: stained glass artist, who worked with Bossányi
• Caroline Swash: stained glass artist and author of The 100 Best Stained Glass Sites in London

In my presentation I briefly mapped out the context within which Bossanyi’s work and vision can best be understood and appreciated, by showing the extent to which aspects of his approaches were shared with others in his day and time. My paper will be published by ArtWay shortly, while the session as a whole was recorded and will be made available by The Liszt Institute and Insiders/Outsiders.

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Bartók Jazz Café.

Ervin Bossányi, The Christian Hope in Art, God's Collections, The Artist as Truth-Teller and André Girard

In June I will be giving several presentations on different aspects of the Arts.

Remembering Ervin Bossányi, Stained Glass Artist is an event at the Liszt Institute on 9 June dedicated to Hungarian-born artist Ervin Bossányi, best known for his stained glass windows at Canterbury Cathedral.

Ervin Bossányi (1891-1975) was born in a small village in southern Hungary and educated in Budapest. He worked as a painter and sculptor mainly in northern Germany until his forced emigration in 1934. In due course, he would establish a new career as a notable stained glass artist in England. He created stained glass windows for Senate House Library, University of London, the Tate Gallery (‘The Angel Blesses the Women Washing the Clothes’), the Victoria and Albert Museum (‘Noli me tangere’), as well as for York Minster, the President Woodrow Wilson memorial chapel in Washington National Cathedral, Washington DC and Canterbury Cathedral, among others.

Art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen, founding director of Insiders/Outsiders, will lead a panel discussion with family members, stained glass experts and others to explore the extraordinary life and unique cultural contribution of this still too little-recognised artist.

Panel participants:

• Ilona Bossányi: granddaughter of Ervin Bossányi
• Revd Jonathan Evens: Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell, who writes regularly on visual arts and has a special interest in émigré artists who worked for the Church
• Alfred Fisher MBE: stained glass artist, who worked with Bossányi
• Caroline Swash: stained glass artist and author of The 100 Best Stained Glass Sites in London

In my presentation I will briefly map out the context within which Bossanyi’s work and vision can best be understood and appreciated, by showing the extent to which aspects of his approaches were shared with others in his day and time.

The event is free but registration via Eventbrite is required. Doors open at 6.00 pm, event starts at 6.30 pm.

Then I'll be giving a presentation on 'The Christian Hope in Art' to ordinands and Licensed Lay Minister at South West Ministerial Training Course. This presentation will share three artworks shown at St Martin-in-the-Fields which show aspects of Christian hope plus initiatives in music and drama from St Martin's that enable engagement with the hope of Christianity.

Later in June I'll also be giving a tour of artworks at St Martin-in-the-Fields to participants in a seminar organised as part of Gods’ Collections, a project looking at why and how collections at places of worship have developed, how they have been looked after, and how understanding of them has changed over the millennia. Places of worship of all traditions have always accumulated collections. Today some places of worship have generated great art museums, while others just keep a few old things in a sacristy cupboard. Recent years have seen a considerable study of 'collection', 'collecting', and why people collect. God's Collections considers collections in the very distinct context of places of worship.

Finally, I will be talking about André Girard in The Artist as Truth-Teller and The Legacy of French Artist Georges Rouault, a symposium in Paris on Friday 17 June 2022, sponsored by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art (ASCHA), The Department of Art History, ICP, and Institut supérieur de théologie des arts (ISTA), ICP, at Institut Catholique de Paris (ICP), 74 rue Vaugirard 75006 Paris, René Rémond lecture hall. For a complete schedule, see The Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art (ASCHA). The symposium is free of charge but registration is required. To register go to https://colloque-georges-rouault.eventbrite.fr.

In my paper entitled ‘True humility is not mediocrity’ I will explore the influence of Rouault on the life and work of André Girard. I discovered the work of Girard through Christianity in Art by Frank and Dorothy Getlein, a book which views Rouault as being ‘the twentieth century artist above all others who fused into one monumental testament all the elements of the social revolution and the new Christianity’. Girard, as student and friend of Rouault, is seen by the Getlein’s as developing ‘the first move of Christian art toward the universal audience of today’.

Although he enjoyed considerable recognition in his own day and time, the reputation of Girard has diminished with time, unlike that of Rouault. As a result, his work is ripe for rediscovery. In this paper, in addition to highlighting key strands of Rouault’s influence on Girard such as humility and risk taking, I will also explore some of the reasons why Rouault’s work transcends his age, while that of Girard seems to remain within his. Additionally, I will share the contrasts in their work noted by their friend André Suares - penitence and affirmation.

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Arcade Fire - The Lightning I, II.

Emigre artists and their cultural impact

This afternoon I met Ilona Bossanyi in person for the first time and was reminded of the impact that emigre artists have had on British culture. 

Ilona contacted me after reading an article I wrote for Church Times looking at influential works by émigré Jewish artists, now under threat. The article mentioned her grandfather Ervin Bossanyi, as well as Naomi Blake, Ernst Müller-Blensdorf, Hans Feibusch, and George Mayer-Marton, telling stories of the impact of migration on the work and reputations of these artists and the current threat to certain of their works.  

Ilona told me about the chequered history of the stained glass window made by her grandfather for the Tate Gallery which was removed from the building during renovations and not returned. After hearing of this story, Artlyst agreed to publish an interview with Ilona exploring the story of her grandfather's migration to the UK, subsequent career as a prominent stained glass artist, plus the complications of the commission for the Tate, the lack of recognition of the artist once the window was installed, and its subsequent removal combined with the removal of reference to its being in the collection although held within its store. 

For Ilona, this story encapsulates many of the difficulties encountered by emigre artists combined with the lack of recognition now afforded to them and their work.  

The Insiders Outsiders Festival and the Ben Uri Gallery have been particularly effective in seeking to redress the balance by paying tribute to the indelible contribution of the artists, photographers, writers, architects, designers, actors, film-makers, dancers and musicians, as well as art historians, dealers and publishers, who in fleeing Nazi-dominated Europe in the 1930s so greatly enriched British culture. Books on the subject include the Insiders Outsiders book, Their Safe Haven by Robert Waterhouse, and Art in Exile by Douglas Hall.

I wrote for Artlyst about two exhibitions of work by German refugee artists at Ben Uri Gallery and reviewed their exhibition of Polish emigre artists for Church Times. The latter included work by Marian Bohusz-Szyszko and other exiled Polish artists such as Stanislaw Frenkiel, Adam Kossowski, Henryk Gotlib, Marek Zulawski and Alexander Zyw. I also wrote about Bohusz-Szyszko's fascinating story for Church Times and ArtWay.

The church in the UK played a part in this story by providing commissions for a significant number of emigre artists and during my sabbatical in 2014 I visited some of the churches that had provided such commissions including churches decorated by Adam Kossowski.

Ilona and I reflected on the interest and value that there would be in an exhibition showing work by such artists as these, particularly that which explores religious themes, in order to explore issues of migration, interfaith dialogue, church/art engagement, and the cultural impact of emigre artists.

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Gregory Porter - I Will.