Transfiguration: Rachel Libeskind and the Tiffany Window
Category: Event Calendar
Date and Time
- Sat, Jan 31, 2026 - Sun, Jul 5, 2026
Location
Akron Art Museum
1 S High St
Details
Transfiguration: Rachel Libeskind and the Tiffany Window is an exhibition offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience a restored historic Tiffany stained glass window depicting the Transfiguration of Christ, alongside new work by contemporary artist Rachel Libeskind, created specifically for the occasion. Together, the window and Libeskind’s response to it explore how the unimaginable and unseen are depicted across religious iconography, early cinema, and natural transformation.
The window at the center of the exhibition was originally conceived by Frederick Wilson, a leading designer at Tiffany Studios. Active from the 1870s to the 1920s, the studio revolutionized the modern form of window design through innovative techniques to achieve more colors, textures, and depth, enabling Tiffany to redefine the interiors of thousands of houses of worship across the United States. The Transfiguration window was created for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron and donated by Charles B. and Mary J. Raymond in 1917. More than a century later, a dedicated group of supporters has come together to fund the restoration of this irreplaceable window, under the care and expertise of Whitney Stained Glass Studio, to ensure its preservation for broader audiences in Akron.
Rachel Libeskind is a multidisciplinary artist who examines how history is shaped and how images retain their power across time. Born in Milan and raised in Berlin as the daughter of an architect, Libeskind’s formative years visiting churches across Europe profoundly invigorated her artistic vision. Through collage, installation, video, performance, sculpture, and textile work, she appropriates and recontextualizes both deeply personal and historically significant images to question imposed boundaries between the private and public, the ancient and contemporary.
A key conceptual element in the exhibition is the chrysalis, employed by Libeskind as a symbol of transfiguration—the mysterious process by which a caterpillar dissolves completely before emerging as a butterfly serves as a powerful metaphor for spiritual transformation. The exhibition creates a reverential space, darkened and framed by silk curtains layered with imagery that evokes the layering of glass used to create color and figuration in Tiffany windows. At its heart, the restored window glows with LED backlighting, inviting contemplation of transformation across centuries.
