Rowan LeCompte: A Life in Light

(gentle music)

MALE VOICE

By the time I was 15, March of '41, I knew without a doubt what I wanted to do the rest of my life. Apparently word went out that LeCompte's no good anymore, he's learned about modern art, and no commissions came my way.

FEMALE VOICE

Rowan was an important artist, he dedicated his life to studying stained glass and he brought a serious modernity to the stained glass world. (gentle piano music)

NARRATOR

The year was 1650. Anthony LeCompte, a French Huguenot who fought against the French for King Charles I came to Maryland and settled 800 acres of land near Cambridge, granted to him by Lord Baltimore. (upbeat jazz music) Fast forward nearly 300 years and six generations to the city of Baltimore, in the new century, filled with hope and promise. Stuart and Helen LeCompte settled in Baltimore to raise a family, and raised two sons, Stuart Jr.

born in 1913 and Rowan Keith LeCompte, born on March 17, 1925. From a very early age, Rowan was fascinated by colored glass and light.

FEMALE

Father said, and his aunt, that when he was a little boy, Christmas trees just fascinated him. And he'd get underneath and look at the glass and look at the light, colored lights, not in the way kids usually do but he just just couldn't let go of it. I think that was probably his first thought of it.

NARRATOR

Growing up in a townhouse in Baltimore, Rowan's creativity and spirit were greatly influenced by his older brother Stuart. Rowan was 12 years younger than my father. So as he grew up under their father, who was very stern and strict and quite a bit older, my father became Rowan's mentor really.

MALE

One of his great glories, besides being a born teacher, which he was and eventually a professor for many years at Rutgers, but it was he that was instructing me when I was too young, often, to understand really what he meant about geology and the kinds of rocks there are, biology and the growth of stems and cells. All kinds of scientific information that fascinated him he made very attractive and interesting to me. During his graduate work at Johns Hopkins, had a laboratory and they, they threw out, carelessly, all the bottles that they'd get chemicals in. And by snuffling around in the ashes, I found lots of little bits of colored glass, even red, believe it or not.

Now blue is used for bottles full of poison but there would be green and yellow and white. But I saved, one time, a couple of handfuls of these fragments. And, of course, Mother said, "Well what you have in mind?" And I said, "Oh I'm gonna make "a stained glass window one day." But then forgot about it and didn't find any more busted bottles. (soft music)

NARRATOR

In 1939, on a trip to Washington, DC with an aunt, Rowan first visited Washington Cathedral. Although he was 14 years old, he often called it his second birthday.

ROWAN

It was a brilliant day, it was vivid blue sky. It was the first of July and the light and sunshine were just tremendous. (uplifting organ music) And when we walked up the temporary steps and across a temporary boardwalk, we reached a door, we pulled it open and there was absolute darkness beyond. I was filled with music from the time I was born and I started playing the piano when I was three.

And the organ was going when I first stepped in through that great metal and wood wall. When we stepped through the door and they closed behind us, we were really in an enchanted place. We were in a taller building than I had ever been in my life and there was no white light glare. There was only a perfectly charming blue rose window opposite, hanging in the air up there with other windows nearby.

And they were all in lovely color. And I'd never seen color in architecture like this. I'd ever seen architecture like this. It was so huge and so beautiful that I was simply thunderstruck.

It was like a meeting with God. Well it was, it was. I was overwhelmed by the beauty, by the mysteriousness. I was just enthralled, I was petrified with joy.

I wanted to be an architect and/or a painter, but I had never seen any extraordinary building of gothic until I saw that. (gentle music) I started within a couple of months to be aware of the glass in the cathedral. And I had two more trips back by the time I was, my passionate interest in it was three months old. I'd gone to the library and read all the books they had on stained glass, and there was one that was written by a man named Day, Lewis Day, which said the procedure of making stained glass windows.

And that fascinated me, and of course I borrowed it and got some glass from a transom shop in Baltimore. And, in short, I attempted my first stained glass panel, which was a clumsy square about 10 inches, and had it ready for my parents for Christmas. And my brother, when he saw it, when he saw my work, he was beside himself with enthusiasm and appreciation. And he said to our father, "Pop, have you seen this beautiful thing "that Rowan's just made?" he said, in ringing words that I remember still.

And father didn't reply, but looked, and he said, "Well I see all the holes that are in it," which I hadn't known to stuff with putty. But that's what you do. Well, Stuart was of course annoyed that papa was not encouraging. But I was not discouraged and I was much too excited about this material to have any idea of stopping.

And by the time I was 15, March of '41, I knew without a doubt what I wanted to do the rest of my life. (gentle music)

NARRATOR

With his mind set on a career, Rowan sought knowledge from anywhere he could find it. One local place that Rowan found inspiration was the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, where he studied their collection of medieval stained glass. Hoping to gain some professional training, he contacted the American stained glass master Charles Connick, seeking an apprenticeship.

ROWAN

The great modern American who's done so much good work was Charles J. Connick. Connick went to Europe and saw the ancient glass and was thrilled because his impulse was to make windows that were designs as the medieval windows were designs and not an attempt to look like a canvas. And, uh, I wrote him when I was young, when I was 15, asking if he would have any opening for a student amateur in his shop for the summer.

And he wrote back and said, "Please let me see some of your work." So I made a panel specifically for him, and presently came a reply. And at the time I was scorched because he allowed me no illusions. He said, "You must know that the figure "is totally without merit and shows "that you know nothing about the human figure." But anyway, I started drawing. And the day came years later when suddenly I was, I looked at something I had just drawn, and I thought, dear Mr.

Connick, I have reached your level.

NARRATOR

Rowan even hitched a ride with the school baseball team when they played Mercersburg Academy, as he had heard of some magnificent windows in their chapel.

ROWAN

The chapel doors were all open, I walked in. And the first thing I saw were the five pairs of tall windows behind the altar by Wright Goodhue, whom I regard as the great stained glass artist in America, the greatest by far. (soft music) And I stood there stunned, just stunned, as if I were looking at a bolt of lightning. The windows were subdued and quiet but the color was magnificent, very, very velvety with this beautiful sky blue and dark greens and dark reds and dark whites and dark yellows, but this beautiful sky blue dominating.

And the figures were what knocked me cold, because they were drawn exquisitely. A voice in my head said, "You have always thought stained glass is a major art, "but you had no evidence until now."

NARRATOR

Full of inspiration, a big break soon came along on a return visit to the cathedral in Washington.

ROWAN

When I was 16, I was, by glorious chance, introduced to the architect of the cathedral by a mutual friend. And I didn't catch the man's name when I was being introduced to him, and only slowly, did I realize who he must be. And I was vaguely tempted by my emotional side to fling myself on my knees before him. And I'm so glad I didn't do that, because (laughs) he'd not had been pleased.

But anyway, he was glad to give me an appointment. And I went and heard him on the subject of stained glass. And that was an education. He said he wanted stained glass windows in his buildings to have richness and sparkle.

He emphasized richness and sparkle. And those sounded like wonderful ideals to me. I mean, there was nothing in me that shrank back. And I think there are people that would be offended by that, by those demands because they'd say, "Oh no, it should be, it should be mute, "it should be quiet it should be restful," which is why people fall asleep in church.

But, in short, it should be soothing and not arousing. And Mr. Frohman very definitely wanted it to be something that inspired and lit a match under you. (soft dramatic music) And at that time too, I had a small commission from Goucher College in Baltimore.

They wanted a panel of stained glass about seven inches wide and 20 inches tall. He took the panel and put it up. And I must say the angels were with me, because it looked absolutely splendid and there was a huge rainbow projected through it. His compliments were so obviously sincere and so pungent that my head spun.

I had never been spoken to in this vein. And he said, "There's a place I'd like you to see." So he put his overcoat on and his hat, his homburg with the brim turned up all the way around and a crease down the middle of the top, and we went to the cathedral and he headed for the crypt door. And we went into a strange room, the like of which I'd never seen. We were in, he told me, the unfinished chapel dedicated to St.

Dunstan. And in its far wall, in the stone surround, was a single window. It was eight inches wide and about 42 inches tall. And it was completely open, there was no glass in it.

He said that, "The window that you showed me just now "is the kind of window that I've always dreamed "of having in that chapel." Well, he said, "But of course, there aren't any funds." And he said, "Though I will ask about and see, "see if I could find any funds for it." Well, I was more than intoxicated, because not only did I worship the cathedral and secondly to worship Mr. Frohman and decidedly worshipping stained glass, but the idea of being able to do something for the cathedral was for me just totally overwhelming. And I couldn't help starting little sketches. He was delighted when I put before him the full size pen and ink drawing.

And he said, "Well I like these very much, but we'll see what the building committee says." He said, "That building committee doesn't have much on, "and I will be back in hardly more than an hour." Oh, just before he left he said, and he was very formal always, "By the way, Mr. LeCompte, how old are you?" And I said, "I'm 16 Mr. Frohman." "Good God," he said, "I thought you were older." And then he took drawings and disappeared. When he came back, he said, "I'm delighted to be able to tell you "that the building committee has unanimously approved "your two drawings for the window in St.

Dunstan's chapel." And, of course, again, everything went blurry before me. And really I had never experienced such extremes of joy as I did then, never. (dramatic music) (guns banging)

NARRATOR

With war raging in Europe, Rowan's joy was short lived. And in 1944, he joined the army. It was not long before he was sent to Europe, where he participated in the invasion of Normandy and the liberation of Paris.

ROWAN

You could smell the Western Front, it stank, the mud. It rained often. And the mud that was in the, it's what the trenches were made of, had to be constantly put back from shell fire with pieces of people in it.

NARRATOR

While he saw the devastation of war firsthand, he never lost his creative spirit and his urge to make art. After the war, while waiting to go home, he met a long-life friend and collaborator, Charles Matz, and they toured around to see some of the cathedrals of France. Finally, in December of 1945, he and Charles headed home.

ROWAN

We did come home together on the USS Washington. Five day trip. Left Southampton on December 14th, 1945 and we're supposed to dock in New York on December 19th. We docked in New York on December 24th, because two days out of Southampton, we got into a, into a winter hurricane on the North Atlantic.

And believe me, there are such things. And we were, it made us five days late. And the ship was badly damaged. And as it turned out, the day on which I came back from Europe at last in the winter, that's the very end of '45, the last three days, I got my discharge on the 28th of December, that was the day Charles Connick died.

(upbeat jazz music)

NARRATOR

Eager to get back to work, Rowan soon formed a business with an old friend from Baltimore. After the war, Rowan teamed up with a young fella named Robert Lewis. And he and Robert started a business together making stained glass windows. Robert Lewis was a friend of his that he'd known in high school, actually, so I think they worked more as a duo where Robert would do one window and Rowan would do another window.

So they only work together for a few years. This partnership was short-lived, as Rowan began spending more and more time with Irene Matz, the sister of his old army buddy.

ROWAN

She was a very modern woman for 1945. And we both clicked. At least, certainly, she clicked with me. I thought she was very interesting, a fine mind and beautiful, a dark beauty.

NARRATOR

They were married in 1950 and began working together on a number of windows.

ROWAN

And we had a whole church to do for Southern Maryland, no, we had two whole churches to do. And these things were very adventurous and wonderful experiences. She loved doing the leading. She learned how to cut glass very well.

And she had had training in painting and was certainly a very good designer, in any case.

NARRATOR

As their reputation grew, they even got work from one of Rowan's old haunts, the Walters Gallery, restoring one of their medieval windows. Well fluent in the ways of ancient glass, Rowan was determined to bring this medieval medium into the world of modern art. Initially, this made it difficult for him to get back to where he most wanted to be, Washington Cathedral.

ROWAN

Apparently word went out that LeCompte's no good anymore, he's learned about modern art, and no commissions came my way. There intervened on the cathedral scene a most rare spirit, and it was my delight to regard him as a real friend. And he was a millionaire named James Sheldon. Mr.

Sheldon wanted to know why Washington Cathedral wasn't commissioning us. And they said, well, this and that. And they said, "Besides we think he's now just doing modern art." And Sheldon wrote back and said that that was rubbish and I was making what the building needed. So he asked me to consider the refectory, big dining room of the College of Preachers, which was right there behind the cathedral apse.

He wanted to give that window and asked how much we would do it for. And we figured that if we could get $4,000, our lives would be saved, and our supply of free water would continue. And he said $4,000 is an incredibly low price, but we didn't know, did not know. Anyway, we designed the window, the design was accepted and the window was made.

And he saw it and it was just exactly what he thought stained glass should be, it was joyous and it had an inscription but it had no other figures. He was very happy with it and he said, apparently to the cathedral without our knowledge, that, "If you don't commission them, I will," because commissions began. (upbeat jazz music)

NARRATOR

Once the doors were open again, Rowan and Irene worked almost non-stop on cathedral windows and even some magnificent mosaics in one of the cathedrals chapels.

ROWAN

We saved our pennies and worked, we worked seven days a week and we worked every night unless there was a movie on the theater, we never had TV. But we worked, and we got an extraordinary lot done for just two people, and concentrated on doing it as elegantly and artistically as we possibly could. (somber music)

NARRATOR

Tragically, the partnership ended in 1970 with Irene's sudden death. (soft music) While Irene's death left a big hole in Rowan's life, he was soon back at work filling the holes in the cathedral walls. Just as he was about to face his biggest challenge, the cathedral's west rose, two new people entered his life that helped him meet this enormous undertaking. The first came through an invitation to meet Peggy Arritt.

ROWAN

A lady had been a neighbor, she said, "Have you ever met Peggy Arritt?" And I said, "Is it she that answers the phone at the church?" "Yes, church secretary." "I've not met her." And she said, "I'm gonna call a mutual friend "and ask him to invite you to dinner." The day came, December 18th, 1971. I looked at all the clothes in my closet wondering what shirt I should wear, 'cause I was gonna get, of course, nicely dressed. And I discovered a lavender shirt and I decided that was to be my shirt that evening. And sure enough I put it on, and went over to the house of the inviting couple.

Before I went in, I looked through, I think they were down in the garden or something like that, anyway, I looked at them and I saw the one member of the party that I had never met, whose name was Peggy. And there she was walking with a long floor-length dress exactly the same color as my lavender shirt, exactly the same color. And so it began. Oh, I thought, "Oh my goodness, this must be the man for me," because he had on a purple shirt and I had on long purple dress.

I thought, "Oh, we're clicking." She is so kind, easy-going, humorous, and bright. She is just, I'm the luckiest person.

PEGGY

I think just going to see what he was doing at the time that we met, and I believe he was finishing up the Maryland window, which is in the cathedral. And then he began the rose window. So from then on, it was just nonstop.

NARRATOR

With Irene gone, Rowan needed a creative partner to tackle the immense technical and logistical challenges of the west rose. He turned to German master craftsman Dieter Goldkuhle. The rose window is certainly special in my career. And it only happens once in 1,000 lifetimes to have a chance to be working on a rose window of that dimension.

ROWAN

I was offered the choice by the builder committee of whether to do figures or not. Well, there are two rose windows, same size exactly, but different tracery. I consulted them, I went over and studied the two rose windows they had, both of which had figures, full of figures. And I defy anybody to tell me what anything is doing, because the figures are small.

And I realized that if the figures were much larger and strongly silhouetted you could read them and you could tell what they were supposed to mean. And therefore, it would teach lessons, but it would be an awful window, because it would be crawling, it would look like monkeys climbing on a child's jungle bar thing. It would have sacrificed beauty for the sake of message. So I thought that would not be the case if it were beautiful designs of all sorts woven together.

And of course, that's what I put down my preference for. And they accepted that. I was free of having to preach and there were no lessons to be learned by studying this thing. But I wanted it to be complicated so that people would want to study it.

(light uplifting music) The essential experience that launched the window was in September, October. Peggy and I went out to look at leaves. And we had, we were living in Reston, and the leaves were so beautiful. That was a year where there had been enough rain and everything was just glorious.

And it was those trees that put me on to this. I just thought how beautiful they are, some in shadow and some in full sunshine and some mysterious and dim and others just like trumpets and trying to make a design that said that. And I worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and worked and worked, and this is it.

DIETER

But then, when you really look at it, it is full of motifs of Celtic interlacing patterns. The west rose window, from the floor, is seen against a 15 foot overhang, which casts a shadow on that glass. And Rowan's idea was to overcome that shadow by faceted glass that gathers the light and scatters it and completely ignores this shadow.

ROWAN

They are pieces of very thick, inch thick colored glass that Dieter has chipped on an anvil.

DIETER

When I really saw the rose window for the first time with all the obstructions removed, the effect of that light was breathtaking to me. And it had to do with these nuggets, this thick pieces of glass, faceted, scattering light, like diamonds or like sapphires or like rubies, that intensity or that richness that I had never expected it to be that overwhelmingly beautiful. When I got to here, I wanted, my brother in his early professional life had been a glass chemist, and he made a number of little glass samples, about a big, as big around as a yo-yo. Anyway, it was a possible use for some of these things and I had a beautiful one that was a clear yellow, beautiful clear yellow, like an autumn leaf.

I put it in this which already had a lot of yellow in it and it builds off the harmony of with suitable surrounding. And I liked doing that. It's presumptuous to try to say, this shows. Oh, no, it doesn't.

This is a meditation, you might say. Just one person's meditation on the complexity of the universe. I can't, I can't, I dare not say more than just, it's a, it's an unknowing whisper in the dark, but it's happy. (uplifting orchestral music)

NARRATOR

After finishing the west rose, Rowan received a commission for 18 large windows at the clerestory level of the cathedral. This was a massive undertaking that engaged everything Rowan knew about stained glass. Unlike the abstract design of the west rose, these windows were meant to tell stories.

MARY

When Rowan was confronted with the issue of making 18 clerestory windows for the National Cathedral, he worked closely with his brother-in-law, Charles Matz and with the dean of the cathedral to develop the iconography for this set of windows. And that took a lot of research into what subject matter was appropriate for the nave clerestory, and then also how to approach it, what the most important elements that needed to be included were so that they would be in the window then Rowan would begin to arrange them in ways that then pleased him as far as telling the story. What was ultimately decided is that the west end was going to represent as if someone were opening the Bible and beginning to read from Genesis and move their way, as they walk through the building toward the west, as if you were reading your way toward, toward Revelation. So it was almost this notion of taking scripture and incorporating it into stone and glass.

NARRATOR

Once the stories were chosen, it was up to Rowan to translate them into designs and glass. Although there were 18 stories to tell, he begins thinking holistically. I would first think about the building. Because if it makes the building uncomfortable, it's a flop.

And even if the building is not exactly what you'd love, the window could still, without thumbing it's nose at the building, it could still be kindly to it. The first thing they wanted was a study for the whole clerestory. And that was duly forthcoming.

MARY

Rowan did think of the nave clerestory at the cathedral as one piece of work. And he did design it with that in mind. So to him, he saw the color going from one window to the next. And sometimes he made changes as he went along.

We worked one window where we started out with one sketch. And then he decided, no, that one lancet had to, the colors had to change somewhat so that they would speak more to the lancet just to the right of it, which in a different window. I think chiefly about the, I think about the wall where this window is and it's position and the neighbors. And I don't want to repeat anything that's close by.

So he was thinking of the nave clerestory as a whole. And I think that that was important in his work for the cathedral because he did try to see the cathedral as a whole and not just as, "This is my moment in the sun "and I'm gonna put this window in here."

NARRATOR

As Rowan begins to focus in on individual windows, imagination goes to work and ideas come from the strangest places.

ROWAN

You can't beat water. The author of many of these designs is a vision received in the shower. I love taking a shower. And on a number of occasions, I've been in the shower pondering the elements in a cathedral window design.

And all I can tell you is the shower head, with it's nice rushing of comfortable water gives you good ideas. And you suddenly see things that you hadn't seen before.

MARY

When you're doing a billboard-size window, you have to have a massive imagination just to fill in all the spaces. And Rowan had the imagination to do that. And that was an important thing that I think the cathedral was looking for, was someone who had that vision and that imagination.

NARRATOR

The design process begins with a small painting that lays out the elements of a window, including its color scheme.

ROWAN

The glass will have much more variation. I'm using one green, for instance. And whereas, in the glass there'll be at least three. The idea being, if it's not just one green there'll be a kind of richness of color that you can see in trees, the tree's leaves are turned in every direction.

So you see green leaves with light coming through them and green leaves with no light coming through them and shiny leaves that are reflecting the sky and others that aren't. It's to get the most wonderful effects of color.

NARRATOR

Rowan had an amazing ability to see in his mind what a window would look like, capture that vision in a painting and then translated it almost exactly into glass. When working on the full size cartoons, Rowan must also understand the structural and technical limitations of the frame that will support the window. I'm putting as many joints as possible under the bar. Because the bar, see this has joint, joint, joint, joint, joint, joint, no joint.

And no joint here. But this glass, the red is likely to be quite thick anyway. So here's a joint, here's a joint, another joint. And at the joints the glass, the glass is vulnerable.

And this, ordinarily, well no, it has joints here, here and here, so that pulling the wires when you're installing the window to get them tightly around this bar won't so tug the glass out of the plane that it's in, that it would crack running out from there. When choosing glass for his windows, Rowan often trusts the instincts of his collaborators, like Mary and Dieter, as they know that weather and the setting of a building affect color.

ROWAN

There were days when the greens become very strong, there are days when the yellows are strong there are days when the blues are strong and on cloudy days, believe it or not, the reds tend to be strong. And on blue days, the blues tend to be stronger, but deeper.

MARY

So you also have to consider where in the building the window will be, what is behind it, what, are there trees, is there a forest behind it, is it up against the sky only, are there buildings back there and which way does it face north, south, east, west? So what kind of light is it going to get? And all of this must be considered when you're making a window.

NARRATOR

Once the glass is chosen, Rowan paints on design elements and controls the light.

ROWAN

It's like, well no, it's not like doing the head of the Statue of Liberty, but by itself, it has to be very coarse, or big and bold, or it's not going to show up at all from a distance. I go way off and look at it (laughs). And I come up close and look at it. The point is to get something that would not disgust anybody seeing it close up and that will be reasonably effective seen at a distance.

I had, in New York, a wonderful man of Greek parentage and I said one day while I was working on a, on one of the cathedral windows, "Oh, I'm doing it all this little fussy stuff that I do, "people won't see, and it will never be seen." And he said, "Oh yes it will." He intervened, he said, "When the cathedral's gone "and these things are in a museum, "people will go right up to them "and they'll see all these little touches." And I thought, "Well, that's, of course, possible." Because, for instance, in Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore and the Metropolitan in New York and the Boston Museum, all windows are seen to great advantage that were once high up in churches.

MARY

Rowan's innovations were not technical innovations, such as he didn't invent a new type of glass or a new way of putting it together. But his innovation were in how to tell a story in modern stained glass without using the techniques that killed the beauty of the glass. And he developed his own technique of painting to achieve that.

DIETER

And also he is able to manipulate the transparency of the glasses by crosshatching, which he does extensively, rather than filming it. So he wants to maintain the transparency of the glass as much as possible and to to maintain the glassiness of a window, which is very different from earlier windows which were heavily filmed and matted. And it stops the light right at that surface at that plane.

NARRATOR

The paint is then baked onto the glass and the pieces are encased in lead.

DIETER

The tighter the pieces fit, the longer the panel will stay upright. If there's any slack, it would cause the panel to shift. So therefore my cutting, fitting, testing.

NARRATOR

Once the window sections are complete, a team of artisans has the delicate but dangerous job of installing them high in the cathedral walls. Each of these clerestory windows has 36 panels that must fit exactly within the cathedral's stonework.

MARY

His windows are about, I guess 25 feet tall, some of them. And each two-foot section is sitting on a T-bar that's secured to the stone so that it doesn't have any stresses of the panels above it on the lower down sections. And that will make a huge difference also in how long the window will last.

NARRATOR

After finishing the 18 windows, Rowan had a chance to revisit one of the windows that both he and the cathedral staff were not happy with. The Isaiah window was made purposely very dark in an attempt to control the light at that end of the building.

JOHN

The original intent was that the glass in those windows closest to the crossing would have a darker character to the glass.

ROWAN

Consulted with the building committee and they all agreed that with this blazing nave, the choir looked like a dungeon, very, very dark. So we decided that if we could make the nave dark at it's end near the choir, you wouldn't be feeling that you're sitting in a place bathed with light looking into a pit, make it dark at that end so that the choir doesn't look so terribly dark by contrast. So it was dark, deliberately very dark.

NARRATOR

In 2006, Rowan started working on a replacement for that window. The new window would have much brighter glass, finally completing his vision for the nave clerestory. After four years of work, the cathedral's Fabric and Fine Arts committee rejected the window after only looking at a composite photograph of the windows panels.

ROWAN

See, a message I got was that the committee, that looked and peered at, not the glass, but photographs that had been taken with electric lights. And that's what their complaints and doubts were based on. It's so unreasonable to have any comment on a piece of work that you're looking at from photographs taken a few feet away. And you're looking at them close up.

And the work itself that people are going to see when it's in its place will be over and away from more than 100 feet. Now, what you're going to see close up is not going to give you any idea of what the distant object will look like. And you will look at it differently because you'll be surrounded by the light and color and design of other windows. And this has its place, but you cannot see it by itself and make any sense of it.

NARRATOR

With the help of Mary Clerkin Higgins, an appeal was filed and it looked as if the window might get installed when an earthquake rocked the cathedral, putting the window's installation on hold. While this was a bitter disappointment for Rowan, he continued to imagine and design new windows at an age when most people have long since retired. It still bites into me. I am pushed to think about it and look at, I'd look at art.

I'm very eager to do this completely different commission for a church in Winston-Salem. And with this one, I've gotten the idea of many people trying to make the world a better place. They include doctors, musicians, and all the people that are trying to do things that are beautiful. And all the people that are trying to do things that are helpful.

(drums banging) On February 11, 2014 at the age of 88, Rowan LeCompte passed away, unable to withstand a bout of pneumonia. The cathedral celebrated his life and legacy in a memorial service that July. ('Fanfare for the Common Man' by Aaron Copeland plays) Two months later, in October of 2014, the cathedral was finally able to install Rowan's last clerestory window. (uplifting music) Although Rowan never saw it in place, in his mind he knew what it looked like and how it completed his clerestory vision.

MARY

I think the window looks fantastic. It's beautifully painted, it has incredible color combinations. It fits in very much better with the windows surrounding it than the original did. And it showed that Rowan really did know what he was doing and this is why people had come to trust him over the years.

NARRATOR

With the clerestory windows, Rowan and his collaborators have created a magnificent piece of art that enhances the whole experience of being in Washington Cathedral.

DIETER

His windows are transparent enough so that under certain light conditions it projects the color of the glass onto the walls or the flooring or the column. And that, to me, is also some of the greatest spirituality of these windows, the light, and this enchanting patterns it creates and that it is not static, but it's constantly shifting, changing its dynamic.

MARY

I think the reason the cathedral turned to him so often was because they could see that he had a clear vision for what the cathedral should look like and what stained glass could do for the cathedral. He was a great storyteller and they had confidence that he could tell the stories that they wanted to have represented. And it wasn't just that he designed over 45 windows for the cathedral, but he also brought in a number of other artists to the cathedral to work, he made sure the cathedral knew about their work and gave them commissions. So, he was important in making it a very important site for 20th century stained glass.

NARRATOR

While Rowan's major work is at Washington Cathedral, he also did windows for over 50 other buildings across the United States. In all of the works, he was determined to make windows that meant something. Perhaps the greatest quest of Rowan's life and his enduring legacy, was that he made great works of art, works that demonstrated that the medium of stained glass has a rightful place in the greater world of fine art. I hope that it can be thought of, by at least some people in this country, as a possible art.

MARY

For some, stained glass is just a decorative art. And that kind of keeps it in a place away from the fine arts. But Rowan saw it's great potential to tell the story of what it means to be a human being. He wanted to use the medium to talk about modern issues and use it in a modern way.

There are lots of people making stained glass, but most of it is hideous or boring or in no case, art. Art is about the human experience and it's about the pain and suffering and the joy that we all experience. And Rowan could see clearly that it was a very powerful medium to do that, to tell us about what it means to be human in the 20th and 21st century. So he was willing to not just make pretty little windows, but to make modern windows that made a modern statement.

ROWAN

And that's what the best artists have done. They sometimes are doing modern windows in very ancient buildings. But if the artist really understand the beauty and the eternal qualities in the building, not just say, a 12th century or 11th century, but what is beautiful, there could be here, that would make this building more beautiful, that would be friendly with this building and not try to tear the building apart. And the best modern stained glass designers have made windows that are really beautiful and are modern, and yet are appropriate to that building.

And I love that.

MARY

Rowan was an important artist who was well regarded by his peers. He dedicated his life to studying stained glass and to exploiting the particular intricacies of stained glass to make the most beautiful windows that he could, and to show others the way in how you could do that. And he brought a serious modernity to the stained glass world. He, I think, will be regarded as a great master and his work will be lauded for centuries to come.

I think his work does stand on its own, as works of art. He really accessed something very strong and very meaningful in the human experience.

NARRATOR

This experience of being human was not always an easy one for Rowan, but he had a single-minded determination, to create works that indeed made the world a more beautiful place.

PEGGY

Have courage to just jump in and do what you feel you wanna do and where you want to do it. Be not afraid to battle those who are against you in any form, in your art, and stick to it. And it's came through for him. I'm doing what I would like to most do in my life, and if I saw all these all these high school freshmen and they all had little labels, this one become the president of Anheuser-Busch and this one will own the largest house in Southampton.

And if I were told that this one wants to do windows for Washington Cathedral, I'd think, "Well, here I go. "Here's hoping, jump!" (laughs) (soft music) (upbeat jazz music)

NARRATOR

For more information about the artists, the cathedral and the filmmaker, please visit stainedglassartmovie.com.