Martin Travers was an English church artist and designer.
Education
Travers was educated at Tonbridge School, entered the Royal College of Art in 1904 and took his Diploma in Architecture in 1908. At the Royal College of Art he studied architecture under Arthur Beresford Pite, for whom he went on to work intermittently, and stained glass under Christopher Whall.
Career
He worked for a time until 1911 as an assistant to Ninian Comper. From 1919 until 1926 Martin Travers rented a studio at Lowndes & Drury"s The Glass House, Fulham. Lowndes & Drury continued to cut, fire, glaze and fix his windows after he established his own studio.
That same year he succeeded Christopher Whall, who died in 1924, as chief instructor in stained glass at the Royal College of Art, a position he held until his death.
Travers was an original, versatile, modern interpreter of earlier artistic styles, and his windows were designed and made with a particular sensitivity to their architectural setting. He was perhaps the most influential British stained glass artist in the second quarter of the twentieth century.
Fine large Travers east windows can be seen at Street Andrew"s, Catford, and Street George"s, Headstone, Harrow. Famous examples of his furnishings in central London are the remarkable Art Deco Churrigueresque altarpiece in Street Augustine"s, Queen"s Gate, South Kensington, and the reredos in Street Mary"s, Bourne Street, Pimlico.
As a draughtsman he is best known for his illustrations for the booklets and cards published by the Society of Steamship Peter and Paul.
Martin Travers" chief assistants were Joseph East Nuttgens (glass-painting, c1920-1924), John East Crawford (glass-painting, sculpting, carving and decorating furnishings, some designing, 1924-1948) and Lawrence Lee (glass-painting, 1946-1948). reformed