St. Vincent Church home to stained glass windows by Irish artist who has St. Patrick’s Day birthday

You don’t have to go far too significantly the get in the Irish spirit for St. Patrick’s Working day. It’s been in our backyard all along.

St. Vincent de Paul Church in Bayonne is household to the stained-glass artwork built by one particular of the leading figures in Ireland’s Irish Arts and Crafts Motion, Harry Patrick Clarke.

And, St. Vincent de Paul Church is the only church in the U.S. wherever you can see Clarke’s function. The church is house to 40 stained glass windows by the Irishman. It’s only fitting that Clarke’s birthday falls on March 17, St. Patrick’s Working day.

Clarke formulated the use of aciding and plating that made hues other artists could rarely reproduce. Whilst exclusive, his type was motivated by the artwork deco motion of the 1920s. The very first stained glass windows at St. Vincent’s were being set up in 1929. The Church’s stained glass windows of St. Patrick ended up put in in 1935.

Clarke’s windows have been documented by photographer and parishioner Peter O’Brien, a Bayonne resident who identifies St. Vincent de Paul Church as his home parish. He is now a Pastoral Associate at St. Philip the Apostle Church in Saddle Brook, where he’s been for the earlier 4 years.

“I grew up in the parish and often was fascinated by the windows,” claims O’Brien. “Also, as I bought deeper into images, I made use of the home windows to check new movie that was coming out of Kodak. I honed some of my images abilities around the church the two inside of and out and have usually cherished the art and architecture of the developing.”

O’Brien also compiled pics for a booklet he worked on with historian Priscilla Ege about the history and design and style concepts used by Clarke for St. Vincent’s Church.

In addition to the St. Patrick windows, more of Clarke’s can be noticed in the course of the constructing. There are 9 windows that includes angels bearing a symbol of the Mass Bishop Winand Wigger, who issued the parish constitution to variety St. Vincent de Paul Church in Bayonne St. Vincent de Paul and numerous windows showcasing Passover.

In accordance to Ege and O’Brien’s booklet, “Harry Clarke Stained Glass Windows,” Rev. Joseph Dolan, who was at the time the fifth pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church, would turn out to be common with the works of Clarke during his regular outings to Ireland. Clarke was portion of the company J. Clarke and Sons in Dublin, and Dolan was impressed enough with Clarke’s model and use of shade that he was eager to use his layouts for St. Vincent’s new parish in Bayonne.

The first church for St. Vincent’s parish in Bayonne was a rented hall at 12 West 48th Street, serving the town’s Irish, Scottish, and German immigrants. A next church was constructed in 1905, followed by the design of the church that at present stands at 979 Ave. C in 1927.

A sequence correspondence in between Dolan, Clarke, and the architectural agency Maginnis & Walsh commenced in 1927.

Clarke was place into competition with other artists because his work was reasonably unidentified in the States. He would get the career at the advice of stain-glass artist Charles J. Connick of Boston. Things to consider ended up then presented for the model of the windows to the church’s Lombard-Romanesque architectural fashion.

Rev. Dolan put the first window purchase through an additional vacation to Ireland adhering to Easter in 1928. By that position, Clarke had completed the design and style of the grasp strategy for the windows, and a deal adopted on June 7, 1928.

That set included the wheel window more than the main entrance and the nine home windows in the apse. These were being adopted by the second established, which provided 14 clerestory home windows contracted March 15, 1929. The two sets ended up shipped from Dublin on the steamer Laconia on Oct. 3, 1929, and arrived on Dec. 10 that calendar year in New York. The wheel window was then put in on Dec. 19, 1929.

In the course of the 1st few of installations, Clarke was planning of the next set of windows, the 3 baptistry windows and the three transept windows. Clarke would not live to see the completion of his function.

O’Brien and Ege produce that Clarke confronted various wellness issues all over his life. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1929, and died Jan. 6, 1931. His spouse, Margaret, an acclaimed portrait artist, ongoing the work from her husband’s master prepare and followed the patterns he remaining behind.

Subsequent the very first established of windows, Clarke’s studio focused 11 substantial nave home windows, the 1st set of which was contracted on June 9, 1939. Adhering to their installation, the remaining a few south nave windows have been contracted on Aug. 26, 1940.

The six remaining north nave home windows were being contracted with each other on Aug. 14, 1941, and would be mounted in 1944. The past home windows in the north foyer ended up mounted in 1945. Unique Masses ended up held at the time for the safe and sound supply of these past home windows owing to German U-boat activity in the Atlantic.

St. Vincent’s Church was additional to the New Jersey Register of Historic Destinations in 2009 and to the U.S. National Sign up of Historic Destinations in 2011.