AKRON, Ohio — A restored Tiffany stained-glass window damaged in a fire at the historic St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Akron is the centerpiece of a new exhibition at the Akron Art Museum.
Transfiguration: Rachel Libeskind and the Tiffany window opens Saturday, Jan. 31 and runs through July 5.
The Transfiguration window was originally conceived by Frederick Wilson, a leading designer at Tiffany Studios, and donated to St. Paul's by Charles B. and Mary J. Raymond in 1917.
More than 100 years later, in 2018, a massive fire heavily damaged the church and left a coat of silt on the brilliant window that has Jesus Christ in the center of it.
The window was cleaned and restored by Whitney Stained Glass Studio in Cleveland. Lights were added behind the exhibition to simulate what it would have felt like in the Episcopal church, with light streaming through the windows.
"This idea of kind of a larger story, or narrative related to this— the fire, the kind of rebirth of this piece within the museum, I think is very meaningful," said Jenny Gerow, the museum's chief curator. "It's a many-layered exhibition, but I think the hope is that you are transfixed by the transfiguration."
Libeskind, a multidisciplinary artist who examines how history is shaped and how images retain their power across time, also uses the chrysalis as a metaphor for the display.
The chrysalis is the mysterious process by which a caterpillar dissolves completely before emerging as a butterfly.
"In the Victorian era, that was used as a metaphor to explain Christ's transfiguration. To a certain extent, she wanted to allow for that to be seen on the walls and in conversation with Jesus's transformation," Gerow said.
The Akron Art Museum is open Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
