Franz Mayer of Munich is a German stained glass design and manufacturing company, based in Munich, Germany and a major exponent of the Munich style of stained glass, that has been active throughout most of the world for over 170 years. The firm was popular during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and was the principal provider of stained glass to the large Roman Catholic churches that were constructed throughout the world during that period. Franz Mayer of Munich were stained glass artists to the Holy See and consequently were popular with Roman Catholic clients.[1] The family business is nowadays managed by the fifth generation and works in conjunction with renowned artists around the world.
In 1847, Joseph Gabriel Mayer (1808–1883) founded the “Institute for Christian Art“ in Munich, to make ecclesiastical furnishings.[2] Royal commissions for the Cologne and Regensburg cathedrals drew Mayer to create a stained glass department in 1860. In 1865 a branch was opened in London, and in 1888 in New York City.[3]
"Stylistically, Mayer's windows tend to contain richly colored scenes bordered by architectural frames consisting of pilasters, columns, architrave and elaborate canopies."[4] It represents an aesthetic that was evidently prized in its time for its craftsmanship and opulence as well as for its ability to engage the viewer emotionally and spiritually.[4]
Broadly speaking, the Munich Pictorial Style is Romantic and "owed much to the revival of religious painting – especially fresco painting in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance masters, especially Masaccio, Raphael, and Michelangelo – in Germany early in the 19th-century."[4] "The studio often incorporated imagery from Great Master paintings as well as compositions of the nineteenth century, a standard practice in public decorative work of the era. For example, a window in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Charleston, South Carolina, installed in 1907 or 1925–26, shows the Transfiguration of Christ modeled after the 1517 painting by Raphael in the Vatican."[5]
2nd Generation
Joseph Leonhard Mayer(1846–1898), sculptor and artistic director
Franz Borghias Mayer(1848–1926), artist and councilor of commerce
In 1882 the company was awarded the status of “Royal Bavarian Art Establishment“ by King Ludwig the II. In 1892, Pope Leo XIII named the company a “Pontifical Institute of Christian Art“.[3] "Munich glass windows could be imported as art, i.e., glass “paintings” and—exempt from a high tariff on imported “raw” glass ... the broad aesthetic appeal, economic advantage, and papal approval made Munich glass windows the overwhelming choice among Roman Catholics in the United States."[6]
3rd Generation – between two wars
Anton Mayer(1886–1967), academic painter
Karl Mayer (1889–1971), poet and merchant
Adalbert Mayer (1894–1987), businessman and strategist
In 1919 the company became a workshop for free artists such as Karl Knappe. In 1922 the neighboring properties on Seidlstraße 25/27 were purchased. The new building by the architect Theodor Fischer serves as today's company headquarters. In the years following 1933, the Mayer brothers successfully remain untangled with the affairs of the NSDAP. In 1939 the companies Mayer and Zettler combined, but production ground to a halt in 1941. In 1944 the staff had decreased from an original 500 to fewer than 20 employees.
Rapid renovations followed the war. Many of Munich's cathedral windows were restored by the company, such as the windows of the Munich Frauenkirche. In 1961, Karl Knappe designed a mosaic for the Assumption of Mary Cathedral, Hiroshima.
4th Generation – transition to international artist workshop
Konrad Mayer(1923–2012), son of Karl Mayer
Gabriel Mayer(born 1938), son of Adalbert Mayer
In 1953, Konrad Mayer took over the representation in South America. From 1970 on, Gabriel Mayer pushed architecture-related works and the Middle East market, resulting in the realization of the Heart Tent by Bettina and Frei Otto at the Diplomatic Club Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 1988 Gabriel Mayer founded a new workshop in New York with the focus on public art. From the 1990s many projects with artist Brian Clarke were realized, in Rio de Janeiro, New York and more.
In 2013 Gabriel Mayer pulled back from the company's management board. In 2016 he was awarded the Bavarian Culture Prize together with Charlotte Knobloch.[7]
5th Generation – present
Michael Claudius Mayer (born 1967), mosaicist and businessman
Petra Wilma Mayer (born 1964), Architect (TUM)
Since 1994 the couple collaborated on Munich projects such as the Herz-Jesu-Kirche (1996), Fünf Höfe (2001) and Path of memory, Ohel Jakob synagogue (2005). Around the turn of the millennium, Gabriel and Michael Mayer revived the traditional stained-glass Munich/Mayer Style and thus the DNA of the house. The float glass department was newly constructed. In 2014 the company opened an office at New York City. In 2018 Petra Mayer founded the Chamber of Wonders, featuring editions and selected pieces from a selection of worldwide artist friends. In the same year, Franz Mayer of Munich realized a 400m2 mosaic for the New York City metro station World Trade Center station (PATH) with the artist Ann Hamilton.
Mayer's commissions include over seventy-six cathedrals, twenty-six of them in the United States.
Along with the stained glass, about half of the company's work is in mosaics. In the fifties and sixties, Mayer developed their own fibre-glass mesh. Adhesives have also been developed to the firm's own specifications. The company provides installation and curatorial services.[8]
The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception is a cathedral serving Roman Catholics in the U.S. city of Mobile, Alabama. It is the seat of the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile. The cathedral is named for Mary, mother of Jesus, under her title, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a contributing property to the Church Street East Historic District and Lower Dauphin Street Historic District and is listed on the Historic Roman Catholic Properties in Mobile Multiple Property Submission
Edward Welby Pugin was an English architect, the eldest son of architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and Louisa Barton and part of the Pugin & Pugin family of church architects. His father was an architect and designer of Neo-Gothic architecture, and after his death in 1852 Edward took up his successful practice. At the time of his own early death in 1875, Pugin had designed and completed more than one hundred Catholic churches.
Patrick Charles Keely was an Irish-American architect based in Brooklyn, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. He was a prolific designer of nearly 600 churches and hundreds of other institutional buildings for the Roman Catholic Church or Roman Catholic patrons in the eastern United States and Canada, particularly in New York City, Boston and Chicago in the later half of the 19th century. He designed every 19th-century Catholic cathedral in New England. Several other church and institutional architects began their careers in his firm.
The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston, located in Charleston, South Carolina. Designed by Brooklyn architect Patrick Keely in the Gothic Revival style, it opened in 1907. The Most Reverend Jacques E. Fabre, the fourteenth Bishop of Charleston, was ordained and installed on May 13, 2022
Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and parish church in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. A Gothic Revival style building constructed between 1876 and 1888 by architect Joseph Connolly, it is considered Connolly's best work. The monumental church contains decorative carving and stained glass executed by skilled craftsmen. The church of Our Lady is one of the 122 parishes in the Diocese of Hamilton and currently has 2,600 families in the congregation.
William Hague Jr. (1836–1899) was a well-known Irish Roman Catholic ecclesiastical architect active throughout mid- to late-nineteenth-century Ireland, particularly in Ulster. He is known as a protégé of A.W.N. Pugin. His office was located at 50 Dawson Street, Dublin.
Cathedral Basilica may refer to:
James Joseph McCarthy was an Irish architect famous for his design of ecclesiastical buildings. McCarthy was born in Dublin, Ireland on 6 January 1817. His parents were from County Kerry. He was educated by the Christian Brothers in Richmond St., and went on to study architecture at the Royal Dublin Society School. He was a follower of the style of the architect Pugin and Gothic Revival.
Michael Healy was an Irish stained glass artist, one of a small number which included Wilhelmina Geddes, Evie Hone, and Harry Clarke, who achieved international recognition for their work in this medium in the first half of the 20th century. He also achieved some distinction as an illustrator and cartoonist early on in his artistic career, and as an ongoing recorder of Dublin street characters going about their daily business. Healy also occasionally painted in oil, both portraits and landscapes, exhibiting a small number of the latter during his lifetime.
The Munich Studio of Chicago was a stained-glass window company that operated in Chicago from 1903 to 1932. It was founded by German stained-glass artist Max Guler.
↑ The window dedicated to Edward Boyle over the high altar, the finest in the church, was designed and executed at a cost of £600. The window was refurbished between 1938–1948. The stained glass in the side chapels was also their work and mostly donated by the “Broderick Family of New York and Brooklyn,” as well as other families in New York City and St. Louis, Missouri. Gerry Convery. “Poetry in Stone: Sacred Heart Church.” (Omagh: Drumragh RC Parish, 1999), p. 120.
↑ Mayer & Co. also provided the Stations of the Cross at a cost of £35 each for a total of £490. These were refurbished and repainted in 1998 by Irish Contract Seating, Dromod, Co. Leitrim. Gerry Convery. “Poetry in Stone: Sacred Heart Church.” (Omagh: Drumragh RC Parish, 1999). p.122.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
