South Amenia restores historic Leonard Howard window

Once again, the memorial stained-glass picture window at the rear of the South Amenia Church sanctuary shines its rich colors into the worship space. Even on a cold winter morning, the sun projects the warm reds and deep blues. Absorbing the sunlight, the colored panes themselves feel warm, even when it is freezing outside.

That is why the window deteriorated. The warm glass tends to soften the surrounding lead; the softer lead can flow just a little. Over the years, flow allowed weight-induced sag, and sag became bulge. Ignored too long, the window could collapse.

The window was missing for much of last year. After consulting a number of restorers, the trustees selected the William Murray Studio of Alford, Mass., to restore it. Unfortunately, to do so Murray had to cut the leading between panes, completely disassemble them, and then rebuild piece-by-piece on a flat work table in his studio. But he first had to make an exact template or "cartoon" of the whole window, so that the reassembled pieces would recreate the original picture. Now, improved leading, mounting and ventilation should keep the window whole for many generations to come.

Murray is a fine-arts graduate of SUNY New Paltz. He is also a sculptor, and expected to sculpt professionally. However, he worked as an intern for a restorer and decided to follow this career. In business for more than 20 years, he has worked throughout the Northeast. We can see some of his restored windows nearby at the St. James Episcopal church in Danbury and at the Immaculate Conception church in Stockbridge.

The South Amenia window was created in 1974 by Leonard R. Howard, a renowned stained-glass artist living nearby in Kent, Conn. About that time a newspaper referred to him as "America’s foremost artist in stained glass." His best known windows are in the clerestory of St. George’s Episcopal Church in New York City.

Howard was born in Deptford, England, in 1891, the son of a cabinetmaker. At the age of 14 he became an apprentice at the Whitefriars Glassworks in London. While working there he met his wife-to-be, Madeline Mary Copping, on an Easter hiking party. A story is told that having absent-mindedly forgotten her address, Len took out an advertisement: "Two weary tramps rested here who had lost two lady tramps at Easter." And she answered him.

In London he did repair work on stained-glass windows of the Canterbury and St. Paul’s cathedrals.

The Howards came to the United States in 1913. Shortly thereafter, Howard was doing camouflage work for the U.S. Army. During World War I he served in France as well as domestically.

They came to Kent in 1922, and it is from there that he created windows. He was both artist and craftsman, carrying all original concepts through fabrication to installation. He was proud of mastering the whole 11-step process: from watercolor sketch to full-size colored-piece work-design (cartoon), through the glass cutting, firing and assembly, to the final attaching in place. He said, "A skilled artist can do most everything alone."

A typical window might have more than 1,000 pieces of various colors, each cut by hand with an ordinary glass cutter. Details and lettering are painted on the glass using a vitreous enamel, and then fired at temperatures of 1,100 to 1,400F so that the paint sinks into the semi-molten glass. Before the pieces are permanently linked with the leading, they are held in place with wax. Large windows are assembled from individual panels having sides of less than 48 inches.

Howard did hundreds of windows, many in the northeast, but also across the country in cities such as Salina, Kan., LaGrande, Ore., and Chattanooga, Tenn., where he did 12 windows for the Inasmuch Episcopal Church. Locally, windows he created may also be seen in the Kent School chapel, Christ Church in Canaan and the Sharon Episcopal Church. In 1937, working under a WPA contract, he did windows for the New Milford High School. These have the theme of men and women of letters and include authors such as Herman Melville and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

During the Depression years the Howards opened their farmhouse home as a restaurant and bed-and-breakfast. Many of their guests were the parents of Kent School students. He also served on the school board and painted scenery for school plays. As a member of the Kent Art Association, he was friendly with other area artists, including Eric Sloane. He also was generous in showing and explaining his work methods to visitors.

Working in a traditional, realistic style, Howard created each window uniquely after consulting with the client and researching the subject.

"I never run out of inspiration," he said. He believed that each design must be site specific. "I have to know how much light will hit the window, and how intensely. The only constants are good design and composition … that transform sunlight into spectacle."

His work demonstrates a passion for brilliance and luminosity — "in glass one plays with colored light," he said. Church window designs "reflect man’s continuing search for a rewarding relationship with his creator."

The Howards had one son, also named Leonard, who graduated from Yale University and has been a practicing forester in Louisiana. Madeline Howard died in 1965. Len Howard moved into a senior cottage in 1978, the year in which a movie documentary about him was made. He died in 1987 at the home of a nephew in Arkansas. Howard had said of himself, "We never made much money but we always did what we wanted."

By 1973, Howard was "only accepting commissions that I like." He did the South Amenia window out of his friendship with James E. Winchester, who ran a small store in Kent, and was also clerk for the South Amenia Church. He worked to his own schedule; "You’ll get it when I finish it," was his answer to being asked how long a job would take.

He installed this window in mid-1974, replacing one with no picture, facing South Amenia Road. The church paid for his work with contributions made in memory of deceased members and friends.

Interestingly, the cost of the recent restoration was about six times the original. But the feeling that the window gives to visitors and members lets them know that they have invested wisely.