Carl Almquist

Wanting to study stained-glass production and not being able to do so in Sweden, he travelled to England at the age of 22 under the sponsorship of Adolf Kjellström [sv], a local architecture teacher.

[2][3] He became a pupil, and soon an employee, of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Henry Holiday, one of the leading stained-glass designers of the day, while also finding work with various other studios, including Burlison and Grylls, Heaton, Butler and Bayne, and James Powell and Sons.

Here the firm's founder, Arthur William Hunt, and his two chief designers, Almquist and Edward Holmes Jewitt, worked as a close team, drawing particularly on the Aesthetic techniques Almquist had derived from Holiday and from Harry Ellis Wooldridge of the James Powell studio; they developed a house style of subtle colours (becoming richer in later years) and delicate drawing which defined Shrigley and Hunt until well into the 20th century.

[8] As the years passed his style developed, with the Pre-Raphaelite influence becoming less obvious and those of Botticelli, Dürer and contemporary Scottish glass designers more so.

[9] Almquist designed many windows for locations in Scotland, Wales, the Home Counties, Yorkshire, and above all in the north-west of England, and there are scattered examples elsewhere.