The Charles J. Connick Stained Glass Foundation is beginning to organize an exhibition, catalog, web site, and possibly CD-ROM or DVD, all exploring the work of Charles J. Connick Associates (1912- 1986), makers of stained glass.

In 1912 Connick established a studio in Boston; it became a leading American maker of stained glass in the Gothic Revival tradition, producing over 5,000 commissions,  for churches, libraries and hospitals across the country.

We are eager to involve students of art and architecture, clergy and church members, and others.  There is much work to be done to make this project vital and we want the hundreds of communities across America with Connick windows to become more aware of their local treasures!

Please contact the Foundation if you might be interested in doing research relating to local Connick windows; if you have specific information or leads that we should follow regarding local commissions; or if you might be able to assist us in some other way -- with ideas for other exhibition venues, funding sources, or names of people or organizations we should involve.

Adventures in Light and Color:
Charles J. Connick Associates, Workers in Stained Glass

The Charles J. Connick Stained Glass Foundation is in the process of organizing an exhibition, catalog, web site, and possibly CD-ROM or DVD, all exploring the work of Charles J. Connick Associates (1912-1986), makers of stained glass.  

In 1912 Connick established a studio in Boston; it became a leading American maker of stained glass in the Gothic Revival tradition.  Over its seventy- four-year history, the Studio produced over 5,000 commissions, many for buildings designed by architects Ralph Adams Cram and Charles D. Maginnis. Commissions include windows for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC, the University Chapel and Proctor Hall at Princeton, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and the St. John Cathedrals of Denver, Albuquerque and Spokane.  While most of these windows are religious in theme, others depict literature, history, science, current events, music or folklore.

Connick used clear "antique" glass, similar to that of the Middle Ages and praised this type of glass as "colored radiance, with the lustre, intensity, and baffling vibrant quality of dancing lights." (Connick believed that his greatest contribution to the craft was "rescuing it from the abysmal depth of opalescent [opaque] picture windows" of the sort popularized by Louis Comfort Tiffany, John La Farge and their followers.)  Key to our presentation will be Connick's passionate beliefs about stained glass: that it could transmit light to the soul, and that it was "the handmaiden of architecture."  We plan to convey the magic of the medium while chronicling the long history of the Studio and setting it within a cultural context.

Connick was influenced by English Arts and Crafts stained glass artist Christopher Whall, whose textbook Stained Glass Work (1905) advocated organizing a studio in the medieval tradition. In many respects Connick's shop was the Arts & Crafts ideal: art produced by a community of committed craftsmen.  At its height in the 1930s, forty to fifty men and women worked at the Studio, which, as Connick wrote in his will, was "only incidentally a business." Promising young artists began as apprentices for four to six years, training in all aspects of the craft: designing, cutting, painting and glazing glass. With time and experience, he or she would become expert in a specific area.  In 1931 a reporter remarked on the atmosphere of mutual respect: "Attitude to his co-designers [is] that of one artist to another...He [Connick] originates, supervises. They elaborate."

The Studio also served as a magnet for artists, musicians and poets.  Among those who flocked to the Studio were Robert Frost and Sherwood Anderson.  Frost wrote of "Connick's stained glass wonder gift" and swapped poems for medallions with Connick.

As craftsman, author, lecturer and editor, Connick played a leading role in the popularization of Gothic Revival stained glass in 20th-century America.  Serving as president of the influential Stained Glass Association from 1931 to 1939, he promoted its magazine Stained Glass, and he published a major work on the subject in 1937 (Adventures in Light and Color:  An Introduction to the Stained Glass Craft).  From 1934 to 1939 he was also president of the Boston Society of Arts & Crafts.

This exhibition will present the Connick Studio within the context of the Gothic Revival and as an active participant in the Arts and Crafts movement in Boston.  Our goal is to present a cross- disciplinary history of the Studio: art, architecture, religion, music, and literature will all be integral to the story.

For further information about the project, please contact the Connick Foundation at info@cjconnick.org, phone: 617-244-2659, or 37 Walden Street, Newtonville, MA  02460.