Laurence Whistler

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Alan Charles Laurence Whistler (January 21, 1912-December 19, 2000) (always referred to as Laurence Whistler) was a British poet and artist, who devoted himself to glass engraving, on goblets and bowls blown to his own designs, and (increasingly, as he became more celebrated) on large-scale panels and windows in churches and private houses. He also engraved on three-sided prisms, some of them designed to revolve on a small turntable so that the prism's internal reflections 'complete' the image. The finest of these was done as a memorial to his elder brother Rex Whistler. His son Simon Whistler followed him as an engraver on glass.

His glass engravings are to be found in Salisbury, where his family lived for part of his growing up, e.g. a pair of memorial panels with quotations by T.S. Eliot, and the Rex prism in the Morning Chapel, both in Salisbury Cathedral; at the Ashmolean Museum and St Hugh's College, Oxford, where he also designed the Swan Gates leading from the College grounds onto Canterbury Road; at Stowe House in Stowe, Buckinghamshire; at the village church St Nicholas at Moreton, Dorset, where every single window was engraved by him over a period of about 30 years; at Corning Museum of Glass, USA, etc. Early works include a casket for the Queen Mother, and a hinged glass triptych to hold her daily schedule.

In 1935, he received the first award of the King's Gold Medal for Poetry.

In 1939, he married his first wife, who died in 1944. They had two children.

In 1950, he married her younger sister, but the marriage was dissolved later. They had another two children.

In 1955, he received an Order of the British Empire

In 1973, he received an advanced Order of the British Empire, the CBE (Commander)

In 1975, he became first President of the new found British Guild of Glass Engravers (John Hutton was first Vice President and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was its first Patron).

In 1987, he married a third time, but was divorced in 1991.

He was made a Knight Bachelor in 2000, not long before his death.

[edit] Books

The Initials in the Heart. Michael Russell Publ. Ltd (June 2000) ISBN 0-85955-257-8
Point Engraving on Glass (The Decorative Arts Library). Publ. Walker Books Ltd (September 1997) ISBN 0-7445-1894-6
The Laughter and the Urn: The Life of Rex Whistler. Publ. Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd (January 1986) ISBN 0-297-78603-2
The Image on the Glass. Publ. Murray in association with the Cupid Press (1975) ISBN 0-7195-3275-2
Stowe: Guide to the Gardens. Publ. E.N. Hillier & Sons. 3rd ed., further rev edition (January 1, 1974)