Making the Windows
Records show that the windows were designed by Simon Berasaluce.
Senor Berasaluce was from the Basque region of Spain and was highly regarded there for his artistry.
Born in 1912, he came to New Jersey in 1952 and worked for the Hiemer company designing windows. He worked in Clifton designing windows for area churches and other buildings for 22 years. He returned to Spain in 1974. He passed away in 1993.
From a history of St Peter's in River Edge, for which windows were also designed, we get this attributed to a Brochure of the Diocesan Exhibition of San Sebastian, Spain, May/June 1999. designer:
Simon Berasaluce worked on the stained glass windows of the cathedral of Seville and designed the ones in the cathedral of Balchite in Zaragoza. He designed and worked on stained glass windows on three continents. In Europe: Britanny, Normandy, Auvergne, Burgundy, Savoie, Basque Country, Madrid, Zaragoza, and Seville. He worked in Paris for 12 years at the Maumejean Studio. He received awards for his designs for the Sacre Couer in Montmartre, Paris, whose windows had been destroyed by the Allied bombings in 1944. This work was exhibited athe Carnavalet Musuem in Paris. In the United States his art appears in Princeton, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Providence, Newburgh, Plattekill, Bayonne, West New York, Union City and Carteret. In Central America: Guatemala. In South America: Colombia and Argentina. The results of his 22 years of uninterrupted artistic activity in the United States are seen in some 800 churches all over the country.
But like the great cathedrals of medieval times, the artistry was a collaborative process. And like the great cathedrals the names of the artisans are not always known.
From a representative of the Hiemer studios we are told:
'The artwork on the actual glass was the effort of several members of the studio. The faces and flesh were painted by a Mr. Williams who was trained as a portrait artist. He painted portraits in oils for many years before becoming involved in stained glass. The garments were painted by another staff artist and the surrounding ornament would have been painted by apprentices at that time.
As with all of our work your windows were a collaborative studio effort headed by the drawings of the designing artists. Stained glass artists receive little recognition in the USA but in Europe many find fame.'
