Casgliadau Arlein

1895-1974

John Petts (1914-1991) studied at Hornsey College of Art (1930-32) and the Royal Academy Schools and the Central School of Art (1933-34). He moved to Wales in 1934, where he founded the Caseg Press. He had workshops in Gwynedd (near Bethesda and at Llanystumdwy), Llandaff and Llanstephan, Dyfed. Preferring to be known as a designer-craftsman, he was a painter in oil and watercolour, a wood engraver and a stained glass and mosaic artist. His best-known work in stained glass in the window 'You Do It to Me', the west window of the 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama, USA, commissioned in 1965 as a gift from the people of Wales to this black church following a racist bomb attack which killed four children. See 'John Petts', Glynn Vivian Art Gallery exhibition (2-23 August 1975) and catalogue, and Alison Smith, 'John Petts and the Caseg Press' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).