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Anne Lee Willet

Anne Lee Willet (1867 - January 1943) was an American artist, stained glass designer, studio owner and writer. She was the wife and business partner of stained glass artist William Willet. Together, the couple founded the Willet Stained Glass Studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Anne Lee Willet
Anne Lee Willet, American stained glass designer, with daughter.
Nationality	American
Education	Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts (now Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts)
Known for	Stained Glass
Movement	American Gothic Movement

Personal Life

Anne Lee Willet was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, to Anne Townsend Cooper Lee and the Reverend Henry Flavel Lee, a widely known member of the Presbytry in Philadelphia and a staunch supporter of the Mariners.

Willet studied at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, now the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and later abroad. She married artist William Willet who is responsible for renewing interest in medieval stained glass in the United States.

Career

Together, the couple pioneered the renaissance in Gothic stained glass in the United States and in 1899 founded the Willet Stained Glass Studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The pair designed and fabricated such works as the Sanctuary window at West Point, the Great West Window in the Graduate School at Princeton University, windows in the Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, the Joseph Harrison Memorial in Philadelphia’s Holy Trinity Church and the Alfred C. Harrison Memorial in Calvary Episcopal Church, Germantown, Pennsylvania.

Her other well known achievements are the windows of the Holy Nativity Memorial Church, Rockledge, Pennsylvania; Greenwood Cemetery Chapel, Brooklyn, New York; Berry Memorial at Detroit’s Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian Church; the World War Memorial in the Cadet Chapel at West Point; and the Hilton and Graham Taylor Chapels at Chicago Theological Seminary; the sanctuary window in the Episcopal Chapel of the University of Texas; the du Pont memorials at Saint John's Cathedral, Wilmington, Delaware; Saint Aloysius Church in Detroit and windows for Saint Colomba's Church, Washington, DC.

After her retirement from stained glass in 1934, she devoted much time to the welfare of seamen and worked to better the conditions of the Merchant Marines until her death in 1943.

Death

She died of pneumonia in 1943.

See Also

Design for the Harrison Memorial Window at Calvary Protestant Church, Germantown, Pennsylvania The Cadet Chapel, United States Miltary Academy
Corning Museum of Glass
Willet Hauser Architectural Glass
Photos of Princeton University's Proctor Hall
Description of the Great West Window, Proctor Hall, Princeton University by William and Annie Lee Willet