Abroad in New York
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Hildreth Meiere is a name unknown to most. To New York architecture buffs, her name and works are known and admired, but still little is known of the artist.
Her works abound in the city. She was a prolific architectural decorator in our last great age of ornamental building, from the 1920s through the 1940s. Though she employed a variety of media, her most dazzling work was in glass mosaic. An example is the “reception room” of the Bank of New York Building at 1 Wall Street. This room is completely covered in intense red mosaic, veined with gold. It’s unlike any other room in New York, indeed the world.
To take the measure of Meiere’s career, go to St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets. This Byzantine-style church, built in 1914-19 (though its dome was not completed until 1930), was designed by Bertram Goodhue, one of the greatest American architects. Goodhue recognized Meiere’s abilities early on, and commissioned her often. She made major contributions, for example, to the Nebraska Capitol, which many consider Goodhue’s masterpiece.
At St. Bartholomew’s, she contributed important works in mosaic and stained glass. In a Byzantine church we expect mosaic; the most famous mosaics in the world are in a Byzantine church, St. Mark’s in Venice. So it’s no surprise that the narthex ceiling of St. Bartholomew’s is covered in mosaic. Depicting the story of creation, it is dazzling.
Upon entering the nave, one notices the boldly colored, boldly geometrical clerestory windows above the north and south aisles. Neither Goodhue nor the commissioning pastor, Dr. Leighton Parks, wanted stained-glass windows in the church, as they are not generally suited to the Byzantine style. That said, I think Meiere pulled off a neat trick, and had Goodhue (who died in 1924) lived to see her windows, he might have approved. The trick was in sensing the surprising affinity of Art Deco for Byzantine. Meiere was not alone in this. Art Deco drew from a wide variety of sources, one of them being Byzantine-Romanesque, as we see in Ely Jacques Kahn’s 2 Park Avenue and other buildings.
Finally, Meiere gave us the superb mosaics of the apse ceiling, at the east end.These show us the transfiguration of Christ, in which he shone forth in his divinity before Peter, James, and John – a subject especially suited to gilded mosaic.
Who was Hildreth Meiere? She was born in New York City in 1892 to a family that encouraged her interest in art. After attending the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan, she went to Florence to study art. She then attended the Art Students League in New York before meeting Goodhue. Briefly married, she raised a daughter on her own. She died in 1961. According to Jean Sharer, Meiere was a practical, not a political, feminist: She bridled at the term “woman artist.” I think of her as a New York artist, without whose mosaics the city would be diminished.
