Biggar Kirk Extract from ‘A Time to be Born’, The Rae Memorial window.
Photo Alison Koehler
STAFF in the office of the Committee on Artistic Matters of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh, always enjoyed the days when Crear McCartney would arrive with a cartoon proposal for a new stained glass window in a Church of Scotland sanctuary.
His submissions tackled every sort of subject, backed up by meticulous research. Ask him about a monastic order, a Celtic saint or martyr, a Biblical text, heraldry, butterflies: he could always answer. During more than 50 years he completed over 100 stained glass window commissions – in Church of Scotland, Roman Catholic and Scottish Episcopal churches in Scotland, and also in Scottish public buildings as well as abroad.