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September 01, 2006

Contact: Scott Silversten Phone: (718) 862-7232 E-mail: Public Relations

Manhattan College To Present Stained Glass Art Exhibit

Belgian artist Eugene Yoors’ works to be on display at O’Malley Library

RIVERDALE, N.Y. – A selection of studies of stained glass windows by Belgian artist Eugene Yoors will be on display in the Alumni Room of Manhattan College’s O’Malley Library, beginning Sept. 21.

The exhibit, which will run until Nov. 19, kicks off with an opening reception from 4:30-8:00 p.m. on Sept. 21.

Sponsored by the Manhattan College archives, the studies are from Eugene Yoors’ portfolio “Brandglas Poëem (Poems in Stained Glass)” and are exhibited in individual lightboxes that highlight Yoors’ trademark vibrant colors.  Each study chosen for the exhibit was professionally photographed, made into large transparencies and mounted to simulate cathedral windows.

The studies include four saints from the portfolio: John the Baptist, John at Patmos, Thomas Aquinas and Lawrence.  The Resurrection, intended as the middle image in a vertical triptych of the Holy Trinity, is represented, although the panels of the Father and the Holy Spirit are not part of the portfolio.

Two images are shown both as studies and as completed windows: “Free Me, O Lord, from the Mouth of the Lion” and “Pentecost.”  This allows the viewer to note the differences between study and execution.  Some images belong to groups, such as saints, sacraments and feasts of the church.  Others stand alone, such as “Ecce Homo” and the exhibit’s hallmark “Lord, Hear My Prayer.”

For more information about this exhibit, please contact Amy Surak, Manhattan College archivist, at (718) 862-7139. 

Born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1879, Yoors spent many years of his life in Sevilla, Antwerp and Paris, where he studied art.  As a Belgian soldier in World War I, Yoors lived in a Dutch internment camp.  Throughout his years of internment, he worked only with materials he could get - chalk, charcoal and butcher’s paper.  He created portraits of his suffering comrades drew the gnarled, leafless trees that he could see outside the camp.

In Holland, he met Magda Peeters, Belgian poetess and political writer.  They married in 1918 and returned to a hard life in Antwerp.  He strove to break through the rigid, traditional church views of acceptable subjects and treatments.  The human figure was to take one third of the window, the landscape of the drama and the props each another third.  Instead, Yoors aimed to show “Christ (as He) would appear to us in a window, His figure and presence glowing through the light in the whole surface of the window.”

A deep Catholic mysticism imbued Yoors’ life and motivated him to design and create stained glass church windows, bringing new methods and colors to the art.  In 1924, he became one of 12 pilgrims and joined other artists who believed that their artistic collaboration could bring them closer to God.

The portfolio that contains the exhibited studies was published in 1929.  It is a collaboration between Yoors and a Jesuit priest, both Pilgrims.  The chapel of a convent-school in Heverlee, Belgium, has 50 square meters of his stained glass windows.  Architecture, windows, altar and stations of the cross are all the work of Pilgrims.

During World War II, Yoors went to England with his wife, son and daughter.  He carried out many commissions, including the George Lansbury Memorial Window at Kingsley Hall in London.   More than 300 windows in Belgium, England and the former Belgian Congo attest to his vision. 

Members of the media who will be visiting the exhibit can call Scott Silversten at (718) 862-7232 or e-mail scott.silversten@manhattan.edu.  Manhattan College is located at West 242nd Street near Broadway in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, one mile from the Westchester County line and accessible by MTA subway line 1.

Founded in 1853, Manhattan College is an independent, Catholic, coeducational institution of higher learning offering more than 40 major programs of undergraduate study in the areas of arts, business, education, engineering and science, along with graduate programs in education and engineering.  For more information about Manhattan College, visit www.manhattan.edu.