Christopher Campbell
Stained glass window designs, St Michael’s the Archangel Church, Rathmolyon, Co. Meath
1968
2008/49
Born in Dublin in 1908, Christopher Campbell studied art at the Metropolitan School of Art under Patrick Tuohy alongside his brother Laurence who became a sculptor. He exhibited over seventy works at the RHA. As well as painting, he designed stained glass for the Harry Clarke Stained Glass Studios. In a catalogue introduction, the critic Bruce Arnold summed Campbell up as follows: ‘Introverted, self conscious, shy, dominated by his Mother, overshadowed by his brother, unsuccessful in selling his work, increasingly bewildered in the direction he was going, yet with a firm and lasting belief in his basic skills and his vision, Christopher Campbell presents himself an enigmatic figure in Irish Art’. He died in 1972.
St Michael’s the Archangel Church, Rathmolyon, was designed by architect Simon Leonard of W.H. Byrne & Son, Dublin. Work began on 4 September 1966, and the dedicatory mass was celebrated on 14 July 1968. Closely based on this design, Campbell’s stained glass window depicting the Godhead and the saving of the world through Baptism and the Holy Spirit remains in place over the main entrance.
