Combining pathos and humour is a central strategy in Peter Young’s stained-glass work, writes Joseph McBrinn
Finding a job in the stainedglass supply shop at Goddard & Gibbs Studios in 1980s London is one of a series of serendipitous events that have led to a stellar career in stained glass for Irish artist Peter Young. Today, Young is well known for his moving, dreamlike, luminously coloured and expressively painted autonomous stained-glass panels, often domestic in scale, as well as larger schemes of architectural glazing for communal spaces from chapels and schools to hotels and hospitals. The trajectory of his career, however – those moments of transformation that brought him to stained glass – remains little known.
