Adolfo Winternitz and the Atelier Chiara

An example of artistic collaboration overseas

This research project analyses the collaboration between the Austrian painter Adolfo Winternitz (1903–1996) and one of the most important Swiss stained glass workshops of the twentieth century, the Maison Chiara in Lausanne (active between 1880 and 1994). Winternitz, who became a naturalised Peruvian citizen in 1942, discovered the Chiara workshop in 1953, during a conference at the Villa Adriana organised by Pax Romana, a Christian intellectual and artistic movement of which he was a member.

It was on this occasion that he met Swiss architect Ferdinand Pfammatter (1916–2003), who introduced him to the technique known as dalle de verre (“glass slab”) and the Chiara studio, which had used this technique to create the stained glass windows by Paul Monnier in the Dreikönigen church in Zurich (designed by Pfammatter) in 1951. This technique immediately appealed to Winternitz, as it had the advantage of allowing the glass to be perfectly integrated into the architectural language of structure and volume. From 1953 until his death in 1996, the artist’s stained glass windows were manufactured by the Lausanne-based studio. Their collaboration led to the creation of some 30 works of stained glass set in a concrete matrix between the 1950s and the 1990s – in locations ranging from Germany, Austria, Chile, Ecuador, Spain, and the United States to numerous Peruvian cities.

Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, this six-month research project is devoted to studying the religious stained glass windows designed by Adolfo Winternitz. It seeks to provide a better understanding of how the artist and the master glazier worked together in a stained glass workshop renowned for its ability to serve artists. The importance of this cultural heritage will be highlighted by the creation of an inventory of Winternitz’s work in stained glass, due to be published on the vitrosearch database with professional photographs of the artworks. It will be accompanied by the publication of an academic paper contextualizing the work of Adolfo Winternitz in the history of twentieth-century religious stained glass in Latin America.

As the first study devoted to the work of Adolfo Winternitz in Europe, this research is important for our knowledge of the material and technical aspects of the Chiara workshop’s production of dalle de verre, and makes a significant contribution to the history of twentieth-century religious art. It is transcontinental in scope, and will be one of the first studies to examine the production of Swiss artists and glassmakers in Latin America.

Project duration: 2024 (6 months)