by George B. Bryant, hardback, 328pp (Lund Humphries, London 2023), £70, ISBN 9781848225602
Reviewed by Dr Marie Groll, The York Glaziers Trust
Winner of the Victorian Society of New York’s book award in 2023, this long awaited and much needed publication (Fig. 1) amasses a wealth of archival and photographic material into a formidable monograph of the outstanding career of transatlantic artist, Henry Holiday (1839-1927, Fig. 2). Impressively the book has 260 colour illustrations and a further 40 in black and white. It is a delight to explore Holiday’s world of colour through the pages of this book, and to be able to see so many diverse commissions in one place and in such crisp detail. The book is structured logically as a chronology of Holiday’s life and work, tackling his early life and emerging career as a stained glass artist, before focussing on key commissions during the 1880s and his emergence onto the dramatic stage of the American art market. It concludes with a discussion of the latter part of Holiday’s career from the 1890s onwards.
While the focus of the book is primarily Holiday’s intersections with the American art market, especially through the artistic and cultural lens of New York’s Gilded Age, useful parallels are drawn between projects in the UK too. Heavy influences of the Pre-Raphaelites are abundant in Holiday’s work, as borne out in Bryant’s fantastic images. Holiday’s windows were frequently mistaken for those of near contemporary and friend Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), and Holiday, during his career and thereafter, has been overshadowed by many of his more famous contemporaries. This book hits that head on.
The author, George Bryant, is a former practising architect based in Philadelphia. With research interests in Victorian architecture, he has become the leading scholar on the life and work of British artist Henry Holiday. His production of the first book-length study in over a century opens with the premise that although many of Holiday’s commissions had originated with American clients, he was not (and still remains) largely unknown there.
The neglect of Holiday’s oeuvre is evidenced too in the fact it has taken until now to formally recognise his status as a leading artist in his own right. Until now, only articles have been produced relating solely to Holiday, and these have mainly addressed his works in Britain. Martin Harrison dedicated part of his seminal publication Victorian Stained Glass (London, 1980) to establishing Holiday’s status. A nod to Holiday’s transatlantic career importantly came in 1989 when designs for American clients were included in a Morris Gallery (London) exhibition curated by stained glass historian Peter Cormack. Perhaps some of the reticence from scholars to dedicate more full attention to Holiday is because there is already a wealth of information recorded and published by Holiday himself. This includes his 1914 Reminisces of My Life which is almost 500 pages in length (and thankfully now free-to-view online. Perhaps it was hard to see how anyone else could provide anything new or original when Holiday had already recorded his career in such meticulous and unrelenting detail.
Part I of Bryant’s book runs through Holiday’s artistic training and networks of formative friendships efficiently. While interesting and necessary, there is limited contextual or biographical information in relation to all the many people mentioned. An assumption is made that the reader will be familiar with them all and this may mean that some of the impact of these early chapters is lost to a more general readership. This lack of contextualisation is not something from which the rest of the book suffers, where vivid descriptions of Holiday’s clients are plentiful and well-articulated.
Chapter 3’s discussion of an intensely productive period in Holiday’s working life demonstrates effectively the way in which he began to take on multiple complex commissions at pace during the 1860s and 1870s, requiring him to take on several assistants. While a period of great growth, it came at the detriment to his personal wellbeing and health. It is refreshing to show both sides of the coin. At this stage we also get the first substantial glimmers of Holiday courting a lucrative and burgeoning transatlantic market for his windows, which sets the tone for the remainder of the book.
The infamous tensions between the advocates of an increasing use of European stained glass in the USA versus those who supported American artists such as John La Farge (1835-1910) and others of the art nouveau and aesthetic art movements – who had developed their own distinctly American style – is unpacked well in Chapter 4. Key examples of American designers losing commissions to European colleagues is presented. Cost, as ever, becomes a central tenet, and Bryant presents both Holiday the person, the artist and the businessman. The Holiday window at Harvard Memorial Hall, is used effectively as an example. Holiday’s window here was considerably cheaper than a design put forward by homegrown talent La Farge. Significant commissions for Trinity Church, Boston, also bring Holiday into conflict with promoters of American glass. Here the author reveals the networks of patrons who would prove to be so vital to Holiday’s stateside career. It should be noted that these networks were crucial for Holiday, as he would only ever briefly visit the USA once during his life (in 1890).
In Chapter 5 Grace Church, New York is examined as a vehicle for the opulence of the Gilded Age, exposing the animosity between the old money set and the socially ambitious newly wealthy. Grace Church is presented as the location with which all the fashionable elite wished to be associated. During the 1870s vast investment was lavished on the church. Aside from the overarching sumptuousness, some fascinating small details are also touched upon, although there was clearly no time for the author to discuss their significance fully. For example, from a technical perspective, it is striking that Grace Church’s Four Marys window (Fig. 3) and the Joseph and Benjamin window by Holiday seemingly went from initial client approach to sketches, fabrication, and fitting with very remarkable speed. The order with Powell’s in London to fabricate the Four Marys was only placed in February 1881, and yet this had been fully completed and shipped on its long and slow voyage to the USA and installed by the Autumn of the same year. This is despite the many other commissions running simultaneously and the studio’s own lead-in time. Although not explicitly discussed by Bryant, he provides clear proof of the remarkable speed stained glass companies were working at in order to feed the American as well as European and Commonwealth markets. Bryant augments this evidence by describing how cartoons were efficiently reused for different clients so that Holiday could quickly arrive at a composition.
Chapter 6 builds again on these ideas, dissecting the challenge posed to American stained glass artists by huge influxes of English stained glass. Attention turns to the furnishing of the great New York City mansions. The foreign artistic imports are contrasted with the American interior design movement, with heavy hitters La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) at the forefront. The growth of pot-metal glass manufactured in America (formerly American stained glass artists had relied on European imports of sheet glass), both traditional and opalescent, adds another interesting technical dimension to the story. This was to reinforce the tensions and growing separation between European and American makers of stained glass.
Part III of Bryant’s book closes the latter part of Holiday’s career. It starts with Holiday’s first and only transatlantic trip. This was to be, among other things, a whistlestop tour of several of his former commissions, which Holiday could finally view in situ, as well as visits with potential new clients in both the USA and Canada. Remarkably he even made space in his itinerary to visit La Farge, who one might have classed more as a foe than a friend. In this cordial and fascinating meeting La Farge apparently explained his method of producing stained glass windows to Holiday, who, despite thereafter plating some of his own windows, found La Farge’s technique generally unattractive. Holiday’s adoption of a plating technique is sadly discussed only very briefly by Bryant in this publication and misses further parallels with other Pre-Raphaelites who had embraced this technique from as early as the 1880s. Some of Holiday’s other technical achievements, such as his production of his own pot metal ‘puddle’ glasses, are also passed over.
At this relatively late stage in his career, Holiday begins to consider a break from Powell’s, who had always manufactured windows to his designs, and who had given Holiday his first commissions in stained glass. Finally, Holiday was to exercise greater control over the production of his windows, after growing unspecified unease with his commercial collaborator. Holiday made arrangements to make stained glass windows in his own studio, poaching several members of the Powell team in the process. The author convincingly presents the case for this move to produce in-house as a positive step in improving the quality of the windows. Extensive correspondence between Holiday and his clients are presented here, which offer fascinating insights into the commissioning, design, fabrication and shipping processes.While this was a profitable time for Holiday, the looming threat from competitors continues to be described and Bryant reveals the ways in which Holiday attempted to counter proponents of American glass. His direct rebuke of American stained glass was risky and came with much criticism. What ultimately emerges is the concept that Holiday would never enjoy the same celebrity (and in some quarters critical acclaim) in the United States as American contemporaries such as Tiffany and La Farge, despite his attempts to fight for the superiority of his artistic creations.
The book concludes with some extremely interesting North American commissions, and the closure of Holiday’s own studio and transfer of the fabrication of his last windows (from 1906 onwards) to the firm of Lowndes and Drury of the Glass House in Fulham. Mary Lowndes (1856-1929) was herself a former student of Holiday’s and here Holiday was still evidently able to exercise great control over the projects. Changing taste, US tariffs and the First World War would have its effect on people’s appetite for stained glass. His failing eyesight eventually forced Holiday to cease stained glass work in 1926. With this news, there is a sense of great accomplishment, strong conviction and a longevity that is truly impressive. A useful appendix listing all of Holiday’s known North American commissions follows.
Bryant has successfully situated Holiday as an artist in his own right, dynamically addressing key moments in a long and rich career. The book is a visual and intellectual feast and a very welcome addition for scholars of this period to digest.