Designer Desire: Frans Wesselman

Montage of Frans Wesselman artworks | H is for Home

Frans Wesselman is a Dutch-born, Worcester-based artist. His practice encompasses wood cuts, etchings, watercolours and stained glass. He trained as an art history teacher however, after completing his military service, he attended art college where he majored in photography and printmaking.

He says that his work has been influenced by Picasso and Rembrandt and has gained inspiration from Shakespeare, Chaucer and the Bible.

Art is based in one’s attitude to life, and in both I muddle on, making many mistakes, sometimes getting things right. People are central to my work, which is also based on the close observation of the natural world. Often my paintings, etchings and stained glass tell a story.

He is represented by a number of galleries in the UK including Axle Arts, Bankside Gallery, Bevere Gallery, British Society of Master Glass Painters and Primavera Gallery. Works available range from greeting cards to limited edition woodcuts, stained glass panels to original etchings.

Portrait of Frans Wesselmancredit

Additional image credits:
Frans Wesselman©

Designer Desire: John Petts

Montage of John Petts artworks | H is for Home

John Petts (1914-1991) was a London-born painter, wood engraver, lino-cutter and stained glass artist.

In 1937, Petts and his first wife, Brenda Chamberlain, (whom he met while they were both students at the Royal Academy) bought a hand press and founded Caseg Press at Ty’r mynydd, Llanllechid, Caenarvonshire. They drew on the dramatic landscape of Snowdonia for its inspiration. Initially, they produced Christmas cards and later illustrations for periodicals such as The Welsh Review (1939–1948).

Following a bombing in 1963 of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama by Ku Klux Klan members which killed four black girls attending Sunday school, Petts vowed to design and produce a replacement. After successfully raising funds from tens of thousands of people in Wales with the help of a front-page campaign by Western Mail newspaper, Petts delivered the finished window to the church in 1965.

Published in 2000, John Petts and the Caseg Press by Alison Smith is the first monograph of the artist.

In 1979, he designed the stained glass window, The Desert Shall Rejoice and Blossom followed by, in 1987, The Tree of Life both situated in the Church of St Peter, Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire.

Portrait of John Pettscredit

Additional image credits:

Art UK | Martin Tinney Gallery | Stained Glass in Wales

Designer Desire: Émile Probst

Émile Probst children's book illustrations | H is for Home

Émile Probst (1913-2004) was a Luxembourger artist who practised in a few distinct genres. We know him as an illustrator of children’s books – often on Christian subjects such as saints and the bible. He was also a caricaturist and publisher.

In addition, he was a very accomplished stained-glass maker. In the 1960s, he designed over 2 dozen stained-glass panel windows for Luxembourg’s Baroque, Roman Catholic Cathédrale Notre-Dame.

If you’re interested in his children’s books, which were translated into many languages, there are sometimes vintage copies available (cheaply) on Amazon (UK) & (US) and Abe’s Books.

Émile Probst designed stained glass | H is for Homecredit