Selecting the Artist

Selecting the artist

Eight artists from the United States were invited to present designs, but during the interview process, one name kept rising to the top of the pile - that of the Frenchman Gabriel Loire. Considered by many to be the preeminent living artist in this medium, Lorie was best known in the bay area at the time for his famous Rose window at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.

We had seen his work and felt his interpretations matched the feeling of the parish. We felt his technique was the right one for the architecture of the church which requires something strong and affirmative. -Kay Millar, Committee Member

Loire visited the site in 1983, meeting with committee and other parish members.

He was a very amiable yet a commanding gentleman. He had a box of pastels and a drawing pad. He quickly put colors down on the paper as he walked around looking at the sanctuary. He conveyed the basic feel of the windows in three or four swatches of paper. You knew you were to the hands of a master as you watched him work. -Dr Brumbaum

Loire returned to France and in 1984 the final sketches were sent to the committee for approval. The project then began in earnest in his studio in Chartres.

I believe there is a little bit of all of us in these windows. He talked with everyone personally. He wanted our ideas and he even asked for our color preferences. -Paule Lyon, Committee member

The Artist.. Master of the Medium

Gabriel Loire was born in 1904 in Pouance, a small town in the northwest of France. He was educated at Combree College and The Catholic University of Angers, where he met the stained glass masters and, at age twenty, published his thesis on the art of stained glass.

For ten years Chartres was Loire’s home, where he was employed by the Lorin stained glass studio. During this time he was engrossed in painting, lithographs, sculpture, religious drawings, and a ceramics studio he founded in Paris. He also illustrated and published books for children.

In 1946 Loire founded his own studio, “La Clarte” (Clarity), and designed and executed stained glass for buildings all over the world. In addition, he continued to paint and exhibit in France, the United States, Japan, England and Sweden. Eventually he moved to Leves, near Chartres, establishing a gallery and studio there.

Loire has designed windows for more than 1,000 churches, 200 of them in the United States. His work includes a stained glass tower in Hakone, Japan, windows in Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, the Trinity Chapel of Salisbury Cathedral in England, the Thanksgiving Chapel in Dallas, the Presbyterian Church of Stamford, Connecticut, and windows of St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, dedicated to Lord Mountbatten.

A Unique Artistic Contribution to the Community… “The Trees”

Gabriel Loire was very taken with the greenery in California and, inspired by the foliage of the area, uses biblical trees as a unifying theme. He calls the finished work, “the Trees”. Loire uses the symbol of the tree within the context of Scripture, yet also captures the feeling of the surrounding countryside. He weaves tree branches and leaves into the work by using the epoxy which bonds the glass together as part of the overall design.

In medieval stained glass, biblical symbols were used as a teaching medium to educate those who could not read. While the religious message of the Christ Church windows is, in that sense, traditional, the windows themselves are an example of contemporary ecclesiastical art.

The first general impression is more or less ‘expressionist’. No single detail should dominate the rest. Rather, an atmosphere of peace and joy should suffuse the whole.

But in this almost abstract creation there are many things to be discovered, some which I had in mind, others which you yourselves may find, discover, or imagine. —Gabriel Loire