Jane Gray ARCA (born 1931)

Stained Glass Designer

Jane Gray is a British stained glass artist. She studied stained glass first at the Kingston School of Arts (1949-51) and later at the Royal College of Art (1951-55) under Lawrence Lee. Lee was so impressed with Gray’s work that he asked her to work alongside him on the design of ten nave windows for Coventry Cathedral. This six-year-long design project culminated in their final installation in 1962 after the cathedral’s consecration. Gray was the first woman to become a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and has designed more than a hundred windows in private and public buildings, chapels and over forty churches across the country, including St Peter’s, Martindale, Shrewsbury Abbey, St Oswald, Oswestry and St Mary, Chirk. 

Her designs mark a crucial turning point in the history of stained glass art as the Victorian style gave way to a more modern aesthetic. In her work, Gray navigates this shift with a style that, whilst distinctly influenced by the modern, retains a deep-rooted sense of the medieval. Despite many of her commissions being for religious institutions, stained glass design was not simply about Christian depiction for Gray, but more about ‘colour, shapes, luminosity, [and] playing with rainbows’.