Methodist History Irish Methodist History
Wilhelmina Geddes, ‘one of Europe’s great 20th-century artists’, was born in Leitrim and grew up in a Methodist home in Belfast, where her authoritarian father was a successful builder and local preacher. Her family attended, first, University Road and then Balmoral Methodist churches.
Educated at Methodist College and then Belfast School of Art, she moved to Dublin and finally to London, in both of which she produced stained glass and other works of unique power and originality.
Dr Bowe has spent over thirty years researching the life and work of Geddes and has served to rescue her reputation from relative obscurity. In 2010, Geddes had an impact crater named after her on the Planet Mercury by the International Astronomical Union.
Nicola Gordon Bowe, Associate Fellow, National College of Art and Design, Dublin, has lectured and published widely on the applied arts and design. Her publications include: Harry Clarke: the Life and Work (4th ed., 2012); the Arts and Crafts Movements in Dublin and Edinburgh, with E.S. Cumming (1998), and most recently, Wilhelmina Geddes: Life and Work (2015).
