Born in 1894 to a tradesman father in a provincial gold-mining town in Victoria, Christian Waller’s rare talent was recognised as a girl. She studied at the National Gallery School and at the British centres of the Arts and Crafts stained glass revival. On her return she built a career patronised by architects, attracting more commissions than even her dedicated labour could manage. Her choice of medium, later illness, reclusive tendencies in later life and tragically early death in 1954 contributed to her extraordinary achievement being neglected until recently. Waller was, however, Australia’s sole woman professional stained glass artist until the craft revival of the 1970s and a leading proponent of Modernism in Australian art.

Christian Waller was inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, Symbolism, the Celtic Revival via William Butler Yeats and George Russell, and most strongly by Theosophy and Hermetic lore. She was intensely spiritual and developed a unique synthesis of Christianity and Theosophy. This permeated her theologically sophisticated art works which parallel those of Piet Mondrian and Hilma af Klint. These esoteric influences were little understood at the time or subsequently, but her work has been universally admired for its mastery of technique, sumptuous colour, brilliant design and originality. She was a fascinating, individual woman of strong personality and wide-ranging imagination, who inspired love in those fortunate enough to be her friends.