The Cathedral's Unsung Masterpiece
By Randal J. Loy
Every
member of the Cathedral knows that we have two windows from Tiffany
Studios, and probably considers those two windows to be the most
valuable in the Nave. In actuality, just the opposite is true. The
Tiffany windows, in artistic and historical terms, are probably the
least valuable windows in the Nave.
Without question, the most valuable window is the "Munich" window, located in East end of the North wall, next to the Baptismal Font. The window was purposely placed in that location in 1913, because the woman it honors, Louise Henrietta Walbridge Musson (1838-1910), brought more children to be baptized in Grace Church than any other individual. At one time, she had 42 godchildren.
Louise, and her husband, Henry Woodley Musson (1827-1908), had come to Kansas City in 1880. They joined Grace Church and were very active in the ministry of the church to the surrounding community. Mrs. Musson's involvement with the church's outreach in its mission to mothers and children, Grace Hall, was lauded and respected throughout Kansas City. Fortunately, I obtained a copy of the sermon given at the dedication of the Munich window from one of Mrs. Musson's relatives, Robert F. Cell, of McAllen, Texas, who also was a choir boy at Grace and Holy Trinity Church during the early 1930s.
|
Read Article 3: Two Mysteries That Were Solved by a Miracle Read Article 2: My Visit With Patrick Hogan |
At her funeral, Mrs. Musson was praised by Rector Julius Augustus Schaad (1866-1938), and her life was held up as a shining example. Bishop Cameron Mann (1851-1932), who had been the fifth Rector of Grace Church from 1881 through 1901, returned to deliver the dedication sermon on March 16, 1913, which was Palm Sunday that year. He tells glowingly of the many ministrations performed by Louise Musson during her life. He explains how she came to be a Christian as an adult, having come from a non-religious home. Bishop Mann was very proud of all of her efforts to assist mothers, children, and the poor. He also tells how Henry Musson was supportive of his wife in all those efforts. It is a touching tribute to two individuals who understood the meaning of "commitment" and "service".
Commitment is also a suitable description of the two artists connected with this window. The "Munich" window was designed by Mary Fraser Wesselhoeft (1873-1971), an American of German descent, and the window was made by the greatest German glassmaker, Gottfried Heinersdorff (1883-1941). The name of this window is a bit of a misnomer, since the window was actually made in Berlin, Germany, in January, 1913.
Ms. Wesselhoeft was a fairly important American female artist of the early 20th Century. She was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and studied art at Harvard, and graduated from the School of Drawing and Painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. After graduation, she traveled to Europe and studied in Berlin and Munich, but returned after a year, and began teaching art in public and private schools. She returned to Europe in 1907, and remained there for ten years, returning only because of America's entrance into World War I in 1917. She exhibited her works in the important Eastern cities in the early 1900s, and also exhibited in Paris, London, and Berlin. She was in Berlin in 1917, studying and working with Gottfried Heinersdorff, when America's involvement in the war caused her to become an "enemy" of Germany, and so she was forced to leave.
When she returned to the United States, she opened a studio in New York City, and worked there for several years, until she went to Santa Barbara, California, in 1925. She arrived in Santa Barbara three days after an earthquake had devastated the city. But she remained there for the rest of her life, and died in a convalescent home in 1971 at the age of 98. She had stopped painting in 1944, but continued to sketch and draw until her death. The window in the Cathedral is one of only three stained glass church windows that were ever made from her designs. The second window was for a church in London, but it was destroyed during the bombing of London in 1940. The third window is in the Unity Church in Santa Barbara, and it is a large rose window of an abstract, geometric design. Mary Wesselhoeft designed many stained glass windows for private homes in Berlin during her time there. The "Munich" window is the only window in the Nave that was designed by a woman.
Gottfried
Heinersdorff was a fascinating individual. He was born in Berlin in
1883, and lived there until 1937. His father, (Paul) Gerhard
Heinersdorff (1844-1900), had come to Berlin in 1875 to open a glass
studio. By the time of his death in 1900, that studio was second
only to the Royal Glassworks. Gottfried was only 17 when his father
died, and he immediately grasped the reins of leadership and
continued the studio. He began studying medieval glass techniques
and joined in the Trade Union, which was something he believed in
very strongly.
His work gained attention almost immediately, and by the end of 1907, when he had completed some important commissions in the City of Eibenstock, in Saxony, Germany, with the gifted artist (Hermann) Max Pechstein (1881-1955), Heinersdorff was considered to be the greatest glassmaker in Germany. Shortly after he completed the window for Grace Church in 1913, Heinersdorff was given the opportunity to merge his studio with a large mosaic glass firm known as Puhl & Wagner, which was the leading mosaic glass company at that time because they supplied glass to Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941). In fact, they executed all the glass mosaics in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. Heinersdorff was a partner in the newly-merged firm, and also became the Artistic and Commercial Director of the merged firm.
But all was not peace and harmony. Heinersdorff was always at odds with his partner, August Wagner (1866-1952). The divergence in their approach to their art caused a rift, which finally grew into a protracted legal struggle that was not resolved until 1934. It was only resolved at that time because of the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, and the fact that Heinersdorff was of Jewish descent. His paternal grandfather, Julius Christlieb Heinersdorff (1805-1877) had converted to Christianity in the early 1830s, as had his paternal grandmother, Joanna Rosalie Friedlδnder (1806-1889), on November 11, 1836. Julius Heinersdorff became an evangelistic preacher in Easter Prussia. But as far as the Nazis were concerned, Gottfried Heinersdorff was one-half Jewish. Wagner used this to his own advantage. After learning that the Nazis were discriminating against those of Jewish heritage and descent, Wagner filed criminal charges against Heinersdorff of "insult and deceit", in addition to the pending civil litigation.
In
1934, the civil court (with a Nazi-appointed judge) found in favor
of Wagner and against Heinersdorff. Heinersdorff was forced to pay
50,000 Reichmarks to Wagner, and had to resign from his own firm. As
a result of the criminal charges, Heinersdorff was "forbidden
henceforth to pursue mosaics and stained glass professionally" in
Germany, forever! Forced by the need to earn a living, Heinersdorff
fell back on an avocation in photography, and opened a photography
studio in Berlin. When Heinersdorff received permission to travel to
Paris in 1937 to attend an artistic exhibition there, with his son,
the two presented themselves as political refugees in Paris, and did
not return to Germany. They opened another photography studio in
Paris.
Everything was fine until September 3, 1939, when France declared war on Germany. Then, Heinersdorff and his son were "enemies" of France, and had to report to detention centers. While Heinersdorff's son reported right away, Heinersdorff himself waited until January of 1940. He was held there for a while, until the day the Germans invaded France. The French released everyone from the detention centers into the surrounding countryside. However, they were unable to prevent the detainees from being murdered by German aircraft gunmen, who were firing machine guns indiscriminately into groups of people. Heinersdorff managed to escape to Mouleydier, near Bergerac, where he lived out the remainder of his life in a small palace called "Chateau Les Merles". (The Chateau still exists and was recently converted to a hotel.)
In October of 1941, Heinersdorff died, possibly due to cancer. His son was not certain of the date of death or the cause, as he had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, and was assigned to Algeria. There he was captured by the Nazis and held as a prisoner of war. He was released in October of 1941 to go to his father, because word had reached him that his father was dying, but he reached France two weeks after his father's death. His mother and two sisters also survived the Nazis and the war. Alas, he could not find the location of his father's burial, and to this day, the site remains unknown.
This window by Heinersdorff is believed to be the only example of Heinersdorff's work on the North American Continent. It is extremely rare, as almost all of Heinersdorff's windows and other artwork were destroyed during World War II. Information on Heinersdorff was impossible to find in English. All the articles I found on him were in German, which I had to have translated for me.
And then, another amazing thing happened!
On Monday, February 4, 2008, I received an e-mail from a German woman who was responding to a posting I had made on a stained glass website almost two years earlier. She apologized, telling me that she was certain I had already seen the information, but on the outside chance that I had not, here was the link. Clicking on that link took me to an article written about Gottfried Heinersdorff and his son. The article was written in first person, and spoke of "my grandfather, Gottfried Heinersdorff." The article had been posted on a new website that Thomas Heinersdorff had set up with a life-long friend. The two had begun an Internet business for affordable fine art. They are based in London, England.
I couldn't believe it. Not only had I found the grandson of James Humphries Hogan, who, by the way, was also born in 1883, but now had found the grandson of Gottfried Heinersdorff!
I immediately sent an e-mail to Mr. Heinersdorff at the website. He responded the next morning and was so excited to learn that there was a large stained glass window manufactured by his grandfather still existing! He asked for a photograph of the window, which I mailed to him. He has been extremely helpful in assisting in the compiling of information for the chapter on this window, and has made many detailed corrections to the information I had gleaned from the two important German articles I found. Because Thomas Heinersdorff has not only the papers, journals, and other documents of his father, but also letters from Gottfried Heinersdorff to his son, which are contemporaneous with the events, we will have extremely accurate information in the book -- most of which has never appeared in print before, and certainly has never appeared in this country!
Thomas Heinersdorff is already thinking about making a journey to Kansas City to see the window his grandfather made in 1913. I can't wait for him to see this beautiful window!
Once again, this project has reached out over the world, and touched another life, and we have been graced to know another descendant of an important stained glass artist. I hope that if you have not done so, you will consider making a donation to this project, so that the book may be printed. Please contact Randal J. Loy at (816) 452-5055, if you are interested in making such a donation to the Nave Memorials Book Project.