Nicola D'Ascenzo


Nicola D'Ascenzo was an Italian-born American stained glass designer, painter and instructor. He is best known for creating stained glass windows for the Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; the Nipper Building in Camden, New Jersey; the Loyola Alumni Chapel of Our Lady at Loyola University Maryland; the Folger Shakespeare Library and Washington National Cathedral, both in Washington, D.C.

Biography

He was born in Torricella Peligna, Italy, into a family of artists, metalworkers and armor makers. His immediate family emigrated to the United States in 1882, and settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Working as a mural painter while in his teens, he attended night classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He attended and then taught at the Pennsylvania Museum School, where he met his wife, fellow instructor Myrtle Dell Goodwin. They married in 1894, and moved to Italy, where he studied at the Scuola Libera in Rome. The couple returned to Philadelphia in 1896, where he worked as a portrait painter and opened D'Ascenzo Studios, initially an interior decorating firm.
D'Ascenzo Studios created Art Nouveau interiors for Horn & Hardart restaurants, a chain of about fifty automats that began in Philadelphia in 1902. The company's flagship restaurant in New York City was on Broadway at Times Square.

Stained glass

D'Ascenzo dabbled in stained glass on his own for several years, and studied the craft at the New York School of Design, sometime around 1900. He completed his first stained glass commission in 1904. Initially, he bought glass from local manufacturers, but soon began making his own. Beginning in 1911, he spent his summers in Europe, making a comprehensive study of stained glass in cathedrals. In 1921, he was granted permission to set up scaffolding inside Chartres Cathedral for several weeks, to sketch and examine the windows up close. The following summer he did the same at Leon Cathedral in Spain.
Architect Milton Bennett Medary assembled an extraordinary team of collaborators for his Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania - built on the grounds of the Continental Army's 1777-1778 winter encampment. D'Ascenzo Studios created thirteen stained glass windows; Samuel Yellin created wrought iron gates, hardware and locks; Edward Maene created oak reredos, choir stalls and church furniture; and sculptors Franklin Simmons, Alexander Stirling Calder, Bela Pratt, and Martha Maulsby Hovenden created statues and other works. The Reverend W. Herbert Burke, who led the decades-long effort to build the chapel, celebrated its completion:
The glowing imagery of stained glass associated with perpendicular Gothic is seen in full perfection. In this respect the chapel is comparable to the famous Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, but surpasses the European masterpiece in warmth and delicacy of execution as well as in symbolic appeal.

For the bell tower, D'Ascenzo Studios created a mosaic bust of George Washington and a Rose Window: Washington at Prayer.
In 1916, the studio completed four 14 ft -diameter roundel windows for the tower of the Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey. Each depicted the company's logo - "His Master's Voice" - a dog listening quizzically to a gramophone. At night, the windows were illuminated, and the west-facing window was visible from Philadelphia, on the opposite side of the Delaware River. The original windows were removed in 1969 and the studio manufactured identical replacement windows which were installed in the tower in 1979. The current tower windows are 2003 reproductions made by another firm. The Camden County Historical Society and the Wolfgram Library at Widener University each possess one of the original windows.
Perhaps D'Ascenzo Studios' most varied commission was for Rodeph Shalom Synagogue in Philadelphia. The Moorish Revival building was designed by architects Grant and Edward Simon, and nearly every surface in its sanctuary was covered with decoration. The studio designed its murals, twenty stained glass windows, lighting fixtures, carpets, and even the bronze ark for the Torah. The studio also created the mosaics on the synagogue's façade, whose colors remain vibrant after nearly ninety years.
For the Cathedral of the Air - a memorial chapel dedicated to World War I aviators, at Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey - the studio created a set of fifteen stained glass windows depicting the history of aviation. These ranged from Leonardo da Vinci's sketches of flying machines to Charles Lindberg's 1927 flight over the Atlantic Ocean. Lakehurst was later the site of the 1937 Hindenberg disaster.
In three pairs of windows for the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, D'Ascenzo drew parallels between Biblical scenes and contemporary life. The "Press Bay" features Christ preaching and a modern minister at his pulpit; but also a printing press, Samuel Morse and his telegraph, a radio broadcast, and the invention of television. The "Sports Bay" features Samson slaying the lion and Jacob wrestling with the Angel; but also baseball, football, basketball, bicycle racing and other sports. The "Labor Bay" contrasts ancient occupations with modern ones.

Awards and honors

D'Ascenzo was awarded a medal at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; the 1898 Gold Medal from the T-Square Club of Philadelphia; second prize for craftwork at the 1916 Americanization Through Art Exhibition in Philadelphia ; and the 1925 Gold Medal from the Architectural League of New York. He exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: 1892-1904, 1916 & 1936. He served as President of the Stained Glass Association of America, 1929-1930. He was a member of the Philadelphia Board of Education, and organized art exhibitions that toured the city's public schools. The University of Pennsylvania hosted a 1938 exhibition of D'Ascenzo's paintings, drawings and stained glass.

Legacy

Between 1904 and 1954, D'Ascenzo Studios completed more than 7,800 stained glass windows.
The "Doubting Thomas" door at Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan features a tiny bas-relief portrait of D'Ascenzo as a medieval craftsman. Wood carver Johannes Kirchmayer carved images of the various artisans who worked on the church.
D'Ascenzo, his wife, and son Nicola Goodwin D'Ascenzo are buried in the churchyard at Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
The business records of D'Ascenzo Studios and sketches of many of its works are in the collection of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. Paintings by D'Ascenzo occasionally appear at auction.

Selected works

Religious buildings