Henry Holiday: His Stained-Glass Windows for North America

This online talk will showcase many of Henry Holiday’s North American commissions. Holiday was unquestionably one of the greatest stained-glass artists of the Victorian-Edwardian period, yet his considerable achievements have not received the recognition that they deserve. He designed important windows for Westminster Abbey, Salisbury Cathedral and Southwark Cathedral and churches throughout the UK, but he is not well known in America despite the many windows he designed for North American clients. His early window displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia opened the door to the American market. Over the following fifty years, he would design over 130 windows for the U.S.and Canada.

The presentation will include many of Holiday’s North American commissions, illustrating Holiday’s transatlantic accomplishments during the tumultuous American Gilded Age while facing the growing competition from American Glass designers John LaFarge and Louis Comfort Tiffany.

George B. Bryant is the author of Henry Holiday: His Stained Glass Windows For Gilded-Age New York published in 2023.