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Martin Crampin joined the Centre’s staff in 1999 to work with Peter Lord on the series of CD-ROMs for the ‘Visual Culture of Wales’ project. Building on the text of the three printed volumes, he was closely involved with recording, editing and illustrating interviews, as well as providing additional photography and design.
Martin was based at the Centre while working on a subsequent AHRC research project, Imaging the Bible in Wales. The project was based at the University of Wales, Lampeter, but was run in collaboration with the Centre and the National Library of Wales. As artist, researcher and designer, he managed the production of the online database and DVD-ROM, which was written with John Morgan-Guy. Together with designing the website and DVD-ROM, and recording and editing further interviews, Martin photographed hundreds of artworks for the project in churches and collections all around Wales.
Following the conclusion of this AHRC project, Martin worked as a cartographer and illustrator for the ‘Ancient Britain and the Atlantic Zone’ project. This work drew in part on one of his earlier research interests in prehistoric and medieval archaeology, developed during his MA in Celto-Roman Studies at the University of Wales College, Newport.
Developing the research undertaken during the ‘Imaging the Bible in Wales’ project, Martin conceived a new project focusing specifically on stained glass in Wales. During the ‘Stained Glass in Wales’ project (2009–11), Martin wrote hundreds of new window records for the database and added over 4,000 photographs to the resource. His online ‘Stained Glass in Wales’ catalogue was launched in June 2011 and continues to grow. After this project Martin focused his interests in stained glass on a volume outlining the history of stained glass in Wales, and Stained Glass from Welsh Churches was published in 2014.
In November 2011 Martin became one of the first PhD students at the Centre, with the assistance of a University of Wales Scholarship. Bringing the experience of all of these previous research projects together with his work as a visual artist, his practice-based doctorate focussed on medievalism in Welsh visual culture through the production of new artwork based on medieval patterns from the Cistercian abbey at Strata Florida and the churches at Llananno and Gresford.
In November 2014 Martin joined the ‘Cult of Saints in Wales’ project, co-ordinating a series of events around Wales to share the research of the project, accompanied by a small touring exhibition. This role was continued during the ‘Vitae Sanctorum Cambriae’ project (2017–19), and he also co-curated and designed materials for the project exhibition at the National Library of Wales in 2017. Funded by the AHRC, the texts published by these projects will be augmented by the ‘Visualizing the Saints of Wales’ AHRC Follow-on project in 2021, which will publish supplementary information on the imagery of saints in the medieval and modern periods alongside geographical distributions of saints’ cults in Wales. In 2020 he published a study of the imagery of St David, and a book on the depiction of Welsh saints in places of worship is in preparation.
Martin has been involved in the Interreg ‘Ports, Past and Present’ project since its inception in 2019, and now works on the project part-time. He is part of the team at CAWCS supporting ten creative practitioners in Ireland and Wales who are developing creative responses to the five functioning port towns in Ireland and Wales, drawing on his own experience working as a visual artist.
Selected Publications
‘Art or Articles of Trade: Appreciating Variety in Nineteenth-Century Ecclesiastical Stained Glass’, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, vol. 3, 2020. (online journal).
Depicting St David (Talybont, Y Lolfa, 2020).
'The Gothic Revival Character of Ecclesiastical Stained Glass in Britain', Folia Historiae Artium, new series, 17, 2019, 25–42.
Teiliau Tyddewi / The Tiles of St Davids (Aberystwyth, Sulien Books, 2019).
‘A Change in Direction: Modernism in the Stained Glass of the Diocese of Llandaff in the 1950s and 1960s’, The Journal of Stained Glass, vol. 42, 2018, 54–68.
Stained Glass at the Church of St Peter, Carmarthen (Aberystwyth, Sulien Books, 2018).
(with John Hammond) Stained Glass at the Church of St Peter, Lampeter (Aberystwyth, Sulien Books, 2017).
'Neave Glass at Llanwenllwyfo: dating and attribution', in J.O. Hughes, Catherine Hughes & Avril Lloyd, Trysorau Cudd: Gwydr Lliw yn Santes Gwenllwyfo, Dulas, Môn / Hidden Gems: Stained Glass at the Church of St Gwenllwyfo, Anglesey (Sulien Books, 2016), pp. 14–27.
Stained Glass at Hafod (Aberystwyth, Sulien Books, 2016).
The Medieval Tiles of Strata Florida (Aberystwyth, Sulien Books, 2014).
Stained Glass at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tenby (Aberystwyth, Sulien Books, 2014).
The Medieval Grotesques of Gresford (Aberystwyth, Sulien Books, 2014). (Aberystwyth, Sulien Books, 2014).
Stained Glass from Welsh Churches (Talybont, Y Lolfa, 2014)
The Stained Glass of St Michael's Church, Llanfihangel Genau'r Glyn (Wendall Publications in association with Llandre Parocial Church Council, 2013)
'Stained Glass in Wales', Vidimus, Feature for Issue 57, February 2012.
Stained Glass in Wales, online catalogue (launched 2011), <http://stainedglass.llgc.org.uk>|
‘Biblical Art from Wales: the Mediaeval Influence’, in Martin O’Kane and John Morgan-Guy (eds.), Biblical Art from Wales (Sheffield, 2010).
(with John Morgan-Guy), Imaging the Bible in Wales (DVD-ROM) (Sheffield, 2010).
(with John Morgan-Guy), Imaging the Bible in Wales, online database (launched 2008), <http://imagingthebible.org/wales>.
‘Interpreting Welsh Medieval Narratives: Exploring Parallel Traditions and Historical Process through Contemporary Art’, Studi Celtici, III (2004), 295–324.
Contributions to the Visual Culture of Wales series of CD-ROMs by Peter Lord (Cardiff, 2000, 2002, 2004).
‘Arthur y Saeson’, Tu Chwith, 15 (2001), 112–14.
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