Ervin Bossányi


Ervin Bossányi was a Hungarian artist, who worked mainly in northern Germany until his emigration in 1934. He then started a new career as a notable stained glass artist in England.

Biography

Bossányi was born in a small village in Vojvodina, southern Austria-Hungary, and educated in Budapest. In World War I he was interned for five years in France. After the war he became a notable painter and sculptor in Lübeck and in Hamburg. A major work from this period is his fountain in Bad Segeberg. In 1934, he left Nazi Germany for England. Here he specialized with remarkable success in stained glass.
He made stained glass windows for the University of London, Tate Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as cathedral glass for the York Minster, the memorial chapel for President Woodrow Wilson in Washington [National Cathedral] in Washington D.C. and Canterbury Cathedral. He also created the windows in the chapel at Michaelhouse in South Africa, and the stained glass windows at Uxbridge tube station in London. The latter depict the coats of arms of Uxbridge U.D.C. and of the counties of Middlesex and Buckinghamshire. Fitted shortly after the station opened in 1938 they were removed for safe-keeping during World War 2 and reinstated in 1949.

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