Boy, could I waste a lot of time here....
As of last Wednesday every issue of LIFE magazine from 1936 to 1970, almost 1900 issues, is available to read on Google Books. I've commented on the Google LIFE Photo Archive before. This is similar, only the full magazine stories give a much better historical context. Seeing that LIFE was big (almost 11" x 14"), LIFE on Google books has an especially clunky interface to look through, but the sheerly amazing content makes it worth the slog. I spent part of a day searching for stained glass related stories.
A quick look, but some curious finds, below the fold...
April 3, 1939 -
Stained Glass has U.S. Renaissance, focusing on the Wilbur Herbert Burnham Studio, out of Boston. This issue came out just a few months before war broke out in Europe. In this context the weird society photo of Hermann Göring and the long profile of Charles Lindbergh in his "America First" days, seem especially curious.
September 11, 1939 -
Art in Wartime, a brief piece with 2 images about the removal of stained glass from Canterbury Cathedral. This issue is an especially interesting one historically, seeing tha it was published just 10 days after the second world war was declared in Europe. Interesting and kind of creepy, seeing how many of the stories come off as pro-Germany, or pro-Fascist. Mussolini is on the cover, and there is a lengthy, and relatively positive, close-up profile of Hermann Göring, Hitler's second in command. There is also a mention of the American "Nationalists", who advocated that America take the side of Germany rather than England or France. Kind of frightening, actually.
April 6, 1942 -
A Dutch Artist Designs Windows for U.S. Church, about the work of Joep Nicholas. Features some nice color photos. This article shows how the mix of ads and photos could be a bit jarring in some issues of LIFE, as you scroll down from images of stained glass windows depicting "Palm Sunday" and "The Last Supper", then down to "The Crucifixion" and "The Resurrection", only to go directly into a glamour photo showing "Life's Sweetest Moment, with Palmolive Beauty Oil Soap". Some things words cannot describe...
March 20, 1950 -
An issue with a feature about 19 Young Americans, which is about 19 American artists under the age of 40. None of whom, I must add, I'd ever heard of before, with the exception of Sigfried Reinhardt, who eventually would design stained glass windows from his home in St. Louis, Missouri.
March 24, 1952 -
Reinhardt was featured again in LIFE two years later, in a piece called Young Painter's Progress.
June 19, 1950 -
More modern stained glass in LIFE, this time about The Assy Church - Famous Modern Artists Decorate Chapel in Alps. Features some nice color photos, including one of a Rouault window translated by Paul Bony.
May 10, 1954 -
From a special issue called Germany - A Giant Awakened (what's with the German obsession?) there is a picture of Georg Meistermann as part of a feature called Outburst of Art - Post-War Art in Western Germany.
October 25, 1954 -
An article called A Left Bank in New York, about French artists immigrating to New York, including stianed glass artist Robert Pinart. Again, I can't say I've heard of any of the other artists.
Granted that this is ust a quick search, but it is odd, all in all, that after WWII, there is so little about American stained glass.
Posted by Tom at September 27, 2009 03:03 PM