Apse Transfiguration, St. Bartholomew's Church,1929, mosaics

Hildreth Meière 

Self-Portrait, 1943

Bertram Goodhue often talked of the designing triumvirate, a collaboration of architect, sculptor and painter as free and equal designers. Central to the aesthetic power and social messages implicit in Goodhue's best work are the contributions of his artistic collaborators, notably architectural sculptor Lee Lawrie, and muralist Hildreth Meière, whose works are defining features of St. Bartholomew’s.

A distinguished Art Deco muralist, mosaicist, painter and decorative artist, Hildreth Meière (1892 – 1961) ranks among the very small number of women whose achievements gained the recognition of the established American art world during the first half of the 20th century. She worked in a wide variety of mediums, paint, terra cotta, and ceramic tile, but mosaic was one of her favorites.  

  
Clerestory Window, St. Bartholomew's Church, with Benedicite in stained glass, 1956;
photo: Hildreth Meière Dunn

 

 

Hildreth Meière learning the mosaic-making-process at the Pühl & Wagner factory, Berlin, 1928

In 1929, Meière was commissioned to design glass mosaics for the narthex and apse at St. Bartholomew's Park Avenue. The mosaics were fabricated from colored and gold-leafed glass tiles with the shades of gold numbering in the hundreds. The subject of the mosaic In the half-dome apse is the miracle of the Transfiguration, with Christ flanked by Elijah and Moses and accompanied by Peter, James and John. Meière also designed eight mosaic panels depicting symbols of Christ, such as the phoenix and the pelican, that were set into the marble stringcourse below the chancel windows. In the narthex, Meière provided an Art Deco interpretation of the Christian creation cycle, drawing on the fifth-century Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, Italy. Between 1948 and 1956, Meière also designed stained glass windows for the St. Bartholomew's nave. Three sets of three windows in the south clerestory invoke the Biblical Canticles – the Magnificat, Gloria in Excelsis Deo, and Nunc Dimittus, while a fourth, the Benedicite window, is one of three sets occupying the north clerestory. 

For more on Hildreth Meière, please visit the International Meière Association.

Lee Lawrie 

        

Pulpit, St. Bartholomew's Church, 1925, detail on right; photo: James Salzano

Lee Oscar Lawrie (1877 – 1963) was one of the United States' foremost architectural sculptors and a key figure in the American art scene preceding World War II. Over his long career of more than 300 commissions, Lawrie's style evolved through Modern Gothic, to Beaux-Arts Classicism and finally into Moderne or Art Deco. He began working with Bertram Goodhue in 1895, his architectural sculpture complementing Goodhue’s early Neo-Gothic designs. 

In addition to the Pulpit and Lectern at St. Bartholomew's, Lawrie's architectural sculptures can be found in the West Point Chapel; the Nebraska State Capitol; the Los Angeles Public Library; the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago; and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. In the nation's capital, he completed numerous pieces including the bronze doors of the John Adams Building of the Library of Congress, the south entrance portal of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception south entrance portal, and the sculpture of George Washington at the National Cathedral.

Artists / Artisans 

Daniel Chester French and Andrew O’Connor, Sculptors, Triple Portal Center Doorway Bronze Doors, Lintel, Tympanum, and Great Frieze; Philip Martiny, Sculptor, Triple Portal South Doorway Bronze Doors, Lintel, Tympanum, and four Old Testament Statues; Herbert Adams, Sculptor, Triple Portal North Doorway Bronze Doors, Lintel and Tympanum; Lee Lawrie, Sculptor, Pulpit, Lectern, Altar, and Communion Rail; Hildreth Meière, Narthex and Apse Mosaics, Stained Glass; Allyn Cox, Stained Glass; John Gordon Guthrie, Stained Glass; Henry Wynd Young, Stained Glass; Victorio Ciani, Baptistery Reredos; James Redfern, Baptismal Font; Frances & Rohnstock Reynolds, Stained Glass; Ethel Parsons Paullin, Chapel Painting; Telford Paullin, Chapel Mural; Francis Augustus Lathrop, North Transept Painting; Piccirilli Brothers, Carving throughout Church; Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, The Monumental St. Bartholomew's Pipe Organ.