Portrait of a Glass Artist

What do the Old Spaghetti Factory, in downtown Toronto, Fallsview Casino Resort, in Niagara Falls, and St. Mary Immaculate Church, in Richmond Hill, have in common? All three feature stained glass artworks created by one studio, Josef Aigner’s Artistic Glass.

“Stained glass is one of the only art forms that relies entirely on light,” Cloe Joël Aigner, Josef’s daughter, writes in Artistic Glass, “particularly the infinitely changing presence of natural light, without which the expressions of stained glass art would not be manifested.” And with this full-colour, large-format homage, she sheds light on her seventy-five-year-old father’s impact on an art form that many have downplayed as nothing more than a craft. The imagery — wide shots of church windows, close crops of individual pieces, as well as glimpses of artisans inside the studio — on its own attests to the beauty and creativity of his work.

Over the last fifty years, Artistic Glass has...