Mary Lowndes

Mary Lowndes (1856 – 1929)^[1] was an important British stained-glass and poster artist, and an active member of the Suffragette movement. She was a leading light in the Arts and Crafts Movement and Chair of the Artists Suffrage League (ASL).

A banner produced by Lowndes for the ASL, celebrating the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry

Work

She first worked under Henry Holiday and then at Britten & Gilson's, a firm which developed Norman Glass, a Slab glass that was used by Christopher Whall and his followers. In 1897, with the then foreman of the firm, A. J. Drury, she founded Lowndes & Drury. In 1906 they founded the Glass House in Lettice Street, Fulham, which provided a purpose-built stained-glass studio and workshop for independent artists. Christopher Whall, Robert Anning Bell and Wilhelmina Geddes all produced work there. Like Geddes, Lowndes was a lesbian.^[2]

In January 1907 Lowndes established The Artists' Suffrage League (ASL) to create dramatic posters, postcards, Christmas Cards, and banners for suffrage events. She became its chair. Work by Lowndes and The Artists' Suffrage League may be seen at The Women's Library, London. Even underwear in suffragette colours appeared in stores. Between 1903 and 1914 the methods used by the women’s suffrage movement began to change and they began to engage in public demonstrations and other propaganda activities. Lowndes’ training as a stained-glass designer encouraged the use of bold shapes and a love of full, rich colours, using striking combinations of green and blue, magenta and orange.^[3]

Stained glass

• All Saints' Church, Childwall
• St George's Church, Altrincham
• St Andrew, Boxford, Berkshire
• St Mary, Ewshot
• St Mary’s, Welwyn
• All Hallows, Gospel Oak
• St Mary, Pimlico, London
• St. Yeghiches (Armenian), Kensington, London
• St John the Baptist, Wittersham
• St Leonard, Heston, London
• St Peter, Great Cheverell, Wiltshire
• St Peter, Henfield, Sussex
• St Mary and St Blaise, Boxgrove, Sussex
• St Christopher, Haslemere
• St Andrew's, Meonstoke

References

1. ^ Some sources put her birth in 1857
2. ^ Emmanuel Cooper, “The sexual perspective: homosexuality and art in the last 100 years in the West” Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd 1986, London
3. ^ Lisa Tickner “Banners and Banner-Making”. In Vanessa R. Schwartz and Jeannene M. Przyblyski, “The Nineteenth Century Visual Culture Reader“. Routledge, 2004, London and New York.

Further reading

• M. Lowndes 'Banners and Banner-Making', Appendix 5 in The Spectacle of Women by Lisa Tickner, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226802459 March 1988

Persondata
Name	Lowndes, Mary
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1856
Place of birth
Date of death	1929
Place of death