History of stained glass: from churches to collectors

When America was building its great institutions, including the churches that would form the cultural center of many newly-emerging communities, it was an absolutely booming time for the stain glass industry, noted Donald Samick.

What so many of those churches wanted, he added, were those iconic and artistic stained glass windows.

The American studios flourished, as did studios in Germany, Austria and England, to meet the demand for glass in new church buildings across the country, noted Samick, the president and owner of J&R Lamb Studios in Midland Park, N.J.

That boom would continue until the Great Depression, he added, which slowed down new church construction or those using stained glass windows.

But not for long, he added.

During the depression, The architects who were building churches did not want to use opalescent stain glass windows, he said. They wanted to go back to gothic.

Then came the second World War, and the trend shifted back again, Samick added.

At the end of World War II, another economic resurgence took place, he said. This time all the churches built at the turn of the century without stain glass suddenly wanted to put in tributes to the wars heroes.

On Wednesday, Samick gave a lecture on Stained Glass of the J. & R. Lamb Studios and Its Contemporaries of the 20th Century at the Hugh F. and Jeannette G. McKean Pavilion at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, as part of the museums free lecture series.

Before an overflow crowd inside the auditorium, Samick noted that there are some misconceptions about stained glass including the common view that it represents a relic of the past. Not true, he added.

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History of stained glass: from churches to collectors