In 1953, Adolph Gottlieb was commissioned by the architectural firm of Kelly and Gruzen to design the stained-glass exterior of the Milton Steinberg House which served as a community center and offices for the Park Avenue Synagogue. The final free-standing façade consisted of 91 stained-glass panels covering an area of over 1300 square feet. This glass "wall" spanned five stories making it the largest single work by an Abstract Expressionist artist. Gottlieb spent the better part of two years planning and carefully overseeing the production of his designs.

From the Foundation's archives, we have gathered photographs, works on paper, interviews, and ephemera from the creation of the Milton Steinberg House stained-glass. This was one of four significant architectural collaborations in Gottlieb's career.

Adolph Gottlieb, *Untitled (Study for Steinberg House Windows)*, c.1953, ink, pencil, and gouache on presentation board, image size = 11 3/16 x 28”

Gottlieb made numerous proposals and studies for the windows on paper and in stained glass. Working closely with stained-glass makers Heinigke and Smith to manufacture these designs, the "finest imported and domestic antique glass" was used in the final window panels.

"As a painter, I am fascinated by the luminous brilliance of stained glass. Working with glass is entirely different than paint because with every change in the intensity of light the color and the character of the glass changes. Not only is it different on a gray day than on a bright sunny day, but when there are clouds in the sky as the clouds move the glass is continually changing as one stands watching. So one is not dealing with color which is fixed and precise as in paint, but with colored light that is constantly changing and has its own moods."
–Adolph Gottlieb in a Q & A on the Steinberg House, 1954

The Milton Steinberg House was unveiled on September 19, 1954, after two years of collaborative efforts between the building's architects, Heinigke and Smith, and Adolph Gottlieb.

"Working with architects has added enormously to my education. On each job so far I have been required to work at very short notice in an entirely unfamiliar material. I am now at the point where I feel that I can handle any material, at least with competence, I have learned that it is possible to get craftsmen to execute my designs with exactitude, providing I supervise them closely enough; and now realize that architects will go along with any design that handles specific problems intelligently and on a rational basis."
–Adolph Gottlieb in a Q & A on the Steinberg House, 1954

The finished façade consisted of 91 individual panels installed in a repeat pattern that Gottlieb carefully devised. Unfortunately, this unique structure was dismantled in 1980. However, individual panels of the glass still exist and some are in use as clear-story windows in the current building adjacent to the Park Avenue Synagogue at 87th Street and Madison Avenue.