The McDonald Windows Exhibit
Remembered Light Home Press kit Homepage Press Release Fact Sheet Selected Graphics Artists Bios
V-E Day Homily Bishop Swing Art Specifications McDonald Articles Preparing a Home for McDonald Windows
Fact Sheet
– Chaplain McDonald collected more than 300 shards of stained glass in
England, France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany during 1944-45.– Incorporating one or more shards, the 25 McDonald Windows were created in diverse media including ceramic, silk screen, vinyl, copper, and glass. These “windows,” by 13 different artists, also take a range of forms and dimensions, varying from a 9 x 14-inch glass book, its shard from an unknown site, by principal artist and project manager Armelle Le Roux, to a 41 x 30-inch crown of thorns created in antique glass by Narcissus Quagliata, its shards from the Cathedral of St. Stephen, Metz, France. See images at www.interfaith-presidio.org/mcdonald.
– Following the end of the war, in a visit to what had been Nazi Germany, Chaplain McDonald salvaged bits of glass from Adolph Hitler’s home in the mountain town of
Berchtesgaden. This retreat was later destroyed to rid the country of its memory. But in later years, the chaplain returned several times to Berchtesgaden to organize religious conferences and serve as pastor to American Episcopalians there who were serving U.S. forces in Europe. Though recalling Hitler’s “tragic human choice,” his later experiences in Berchtesgaden help explain his decision to include “the Hitler shards” in the McDonald Windows project.– The Main Post Interfaith Chapel at the Presidio of San Francisco was built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style in 1931 by the U.S. Sixth Army. The Chapel promotes understanding and cooperation between peoples and faiths. It houses many works of art. Its inner sanctuary is lined with stained-glass windows depicting military virtues and values, sponsored by veterans’ organizations. The McDonald Windows will build on this tradition.
– A $6 million fundraising campaign is underway to expand the Main Post Interfaith Chapel and endow its work and programming. The Rev. McDonald’s sister, Elizabeth Parsons, bequeathed a large donation to start the campaign. See http://www.interfaith-presidio.org/mcdonald/involved.htm.
– The exhibition catalogue, “Remembered Light,” was assembled by The Frederick A. McDonald Trust with text by the Rev. Paul C. Chaffee. The catalogue was designed by Daniel Ziegler.
Biography
Frederick A. McDonald was born in
Seattle in 1908. A graduate of the General Seminary of the Episcopal Church, his early pastoral vocation took him from Rhode Island to Washington and Oregon. After attending the Chaplain School at Harvard University in 1942, U.S. Army Chaplain McDonald served at Fort Mason, in San Francisco, and subsequently was posted to the 12th Army Group under the command of General Omar Bradley. Arriving in Europe, the chaplain began to collect shards of stained glass from war-devastated churches and sanctuaries. At war’s end, as troops awaited their return home, he taught at Biarritz Army University.Later parish assignments took the Rev. McDonald around the world and lastly to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco. He was “thoroughly interfaith-friendly half a century before interfaith relations began transforming religion in America,” wrote the Rt. Rev. William Swing, retired Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of California. In 1995, he privately published his memoirs, “Remembered Light,” and in 1999 began work on the McDonald Windows project. A resident of San Francisco for 20 years, he died there in 2002.