Lawrence Lee

Lawrence Stanley Lee (18 September 1909 – 25 April 2011) was a British stained glass artist whose work spanned the latter half of the 20th century.

He was best known for leading the project to create ten windows for the nave of the new Coventry Cathedral.

His other work includes windows at Guildford and Southwark Cathedrals as well as a great number of works elsewhere in the UK, and some in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Lee was born in Chelsea Hospital for Women on 18 September 1909.

His family moved to Weybridge where his father, William, a chauffeur and engineer, had a garage near to the Brooklands Race Track.

Lawrence's mother, Rose, was deeply religious and it was this influence that gave him the appreciation of biblical symbolism that became an important feature of his work.

His parents divorced and Lawrence moved with his mother to New Malden.

At the local Methodist church he met Dorothy Tucker, later to become his wife.

He left school at 14, but won a scholarship to Kingston School of Art.

A further award in 1927 enabled him to attend the Royal College of Art, where he studied stained glass under Martin Travers, graduating in 1930.

Lee's first job was as an assistant to Travers in his studio.

For a while he joined James and Lilian Dring in an artistic co-operative.

His works included a range of craft and art work produced at Southside Studios in Clapham, London.

He also worked part-time teaching at Kingston and Bromley schools of art.

For a year prior to the outbreak of war, Lee joined the Anglican Franciscan Friary at Cerne Abbey, Dorset, but at the outbreak of war, abandoned monastic life to fight fascism.

In the summer of 1940, Lee married Dorothy Tucker.

Lee joined the Royal Army Medical Corps but transferred to the Royal Artillery, serving as an anti-aircraft gunner for a while.

He was promoted from cadet to Second Lieutenant in June 1942.

The Imperial War Museum holds five watercolours of tanks and desert scenes, and, though some works were declined in 1942, a donation from James Dring was accepted and further works were subsequently purchased.

Other work from this period is held in the Ashmolean Museum.

On leaving the army, Lee returned to Travers' commercial studio as a chief assistant alongside John E Crawford.

Travers' services were in great demand restoring bomb-damaged church windows and furnishings.

He subsequently served in North Africa and Italy, seeing action at the battle of the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in February 1943 and in the Allied landings at Salerno later that year.

He was transferred to the Army Educational Service in Italy in February 1945, maintaining his rank of Lieutenant, and ran courses in art and culture.

He sketched and painted throughout the war, capturing an eruption of Mount Vesuvius whilst in Italy.

When Travers died in 1948 Lee and Crawford shared his open commissions, prompting Lee to establish his own studio; firstly in Sutton, later in New Malden, and finally, in 1963, at Penshurst, Kent.

Other work from the early 1950s includes four windows in the south wall of St Magnus-the-Martyr in the City of London.

This includes about 26 windows by Lee installed over the years between 1954 and 1991.

These include small heraldic windows commemorating the field marshals of the Second World War.

These depict St Magnus of Orkney, St Margaret of Antioch, St Thomas of Canterbury and St Michael - the latter dated 1954.

The majority of post-war commissions were conservatively traditional and influenced by the post-Victorian Arts and Crafts movement.

At the RCA though, Lee could be more experimental.

Whilst respecting the historic traditions of the craft, Lee was also interested in the new possibilities afforded by improvements in adhesives.

He was also interested in all forms of glass including slab glass and the dalle de verre technique.

Sir Basil Spence was commissioned to design the replacement for Coventry Cathedral, destroyed during the war.

Spence was determined that the stained glass should be an integral part of the design from the outset.

About this time, Spence received an invitation from Lee to act as external examiner at the RCA.

Work like this continued even into the 1960s such as Lee's window at Holy Trinity church in Attleborough, Warwickshire showing Christ in majesty with a wheel of life - a replacement for a Victorian window destroyed by bomb-damage.

Lee also succeeded Travers as the RCA's Head of Stained Glass, where he served until 1968.

Lee also paid homage to his military career making several contributions to the Royal Military Academy Chapel at Sandhurst.