TANIA THOREAU

Karla Whitmore died at the Greenwich Hospital Sydney on Monday 4 December 2023 from a heart event.

Born into an artistic and innovative family, Karla was retired, with a background in secondary teaching, editing, international conference organisation, and administration in a public policy research centre/think tank, professional associations, and a health psychology unit.  Karla travelled extensively, had wide ranging personal interests and actively engaged in her life. She researched her family’s genealogy.  Karla also researched and wrote academic quality papers on topics relating to the Chinese community of Sydney NSW, including market gardens and Chinese restaurants.  She was an accomplished and published poet, who cared deeply about the impact of humans on nature. Karla’s scholarship also included extensive published research into and writing about Australian stained-glass design and production.  These even included an article about visions of Captain Cook in stained glass.

Karla’s wide network of friends recall her as kind and generous, bright, genial, curious, and willing to share her knowledge, a lovely lady who will be sadly missed.

Karla is survived by her sisters Sonya and Tania, and Chen, Chin and Yuan whom she regarded as her family.

KARLA WHITMORE, researcher and writer on Australia’s stained glass

BRONWYN HUGHES

The stained-glass community in Australia and the United Kingdom was shocked by the death of our colleague and friend, Karla Whitmore. For a more than a decade, Karla produced exceptional contributions for publication on The Encyclopedia of Australian Glass in Architecture (TEAGA), and the GLAAS Inc Research websites.  Her TEAGA entries included Percy Barnard, Stephen Moor, John Radecki and her friend, the late Kevin Little.  For the research site, Karla wrote ‘Visions of Captain Cook’ (2019), the article mentioned above, and ‘William Warrington’s Connections with Australia’ (2019). Over the years, her research ranged from well-known artists and makers to those barely known even to stained glass historians, bringing to light new aspects and information as exemplified by her final article for TEAGA, ‘F.G. O’Brien: More than just windscreens’ (2023).  In addition, she became an excellent photographer as can be seen in her many publications and most recently, in her self-published book, Stained Glass Windows by Lyon, Cottier & Co. Interior Decorators to Sydney (2022).

As editor, I have welcomed her ideas, wide-ranging discussions and constant support, which have been as important to the success of the websites as has her writing. Dr Beverley Sherry, John Milton scholar and author of publications worldwide on stained glass including Australia’s Historic Stained Glass (Murray Child, Sydney 1991), acknowledges Karla’s invaluable help on many occasions, notably her discovery of the stained-glass windows, Milton’s Paradise Lost and John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, installed in Geneva College Library, Pennsylvania. Beverley’s publications have included some of Karla’s excellent photographs, as in “Portraits of Milton in Stained Glass”, in Global Milton and Visual Art (2021). My book, Lights Everlasting: Australia’s Commemorative Stained Glass from the Boer War to Vietnam (Australian Scholarly Press, Melbourne 2023), was significantly enhanced by Karla’s photography.

While her writing and photography skills have added significantly to our knowledge of Australian stained glass, all of us involved in stained glass will miss her warm heart and generosity of spirit much more. 

Vale Karla.

‘Forest Lodge and Friends’ May 2023     Back: Glebe Society and Australiana Society members, Robert Hannan, Peter Crawshaw and Ian Stephenson.  Front: Beverley Sherry, Karla Whitmore.    Photograph taken by Eric Shon-Brown.