Adirondack Life – September 2019

September + October 2019 ADIRONDACK LIFE 77

The Duvals first visited the Adiron-

dacks in the late 1960s, when their son

attended North Country School, in Lake

Placid. Elga, Duval says, “was strictly a

city girl. She thought this was the sticks.”

After Elga died of cancer, in 1977,

Duval remained in New York City for

another 15 years. Then, two years after

buying a house and 180 acres in Saranac

for fishing getaways, he decided to move

there year-round. “It wasn’t much of a

house,” he says. “I just wanted it to be

on a river.”

Duval had little in common with his

rural neighbors, but they looked after

him. When he became stranded at a

friend’s house during the ice storm of

1998, Duval returned to find they had set

up his generator.

Soon after he moved to Saranac, Duval

met the artist Patricia Reynolds, begin-

ning a relationship that lasted until her

death, in 2015. The Willsboro Point house

they shared is hung with both of their

work—Duval’s abstract canvases in the

spacious kitchen, Reynolds’s landscapes

in the living room, with its stunning view

of Lake Champlain and Vermont.

To see Duval’s stained-glass work,

you’ll have to head north of the Blue

Line, to Plattsburgh. At Champlain Valley

Physicians Hospital, a 10-foot-by-20-foot

window hangs above the main entrance.

And at SUNY Plattsburgh, which awarded

Duval an honorary doctorate of fine art in

2017, he was commissioned to design a

sculptural artwork for the library’s Holo-

caust Memorial Gallery. Kristallnacht is

two pillars of multicolored dalle de verre

shards that echo the broken glass of the

coordinated attacks on German-Jewish

businesses and homes, in 1938. It was an

emotional reminder of his own childhood

experiences during the occupation.

Whether in a house of worship or a

secular space, Duval says, he hopes his

windows and paintings inspire people.

But perhaps the best compliment he’s

received on one of his designs was in

an entirely different medium. A doctor

friend asked him to design his grave-

stone. “He said it was the best one in the

graveyard,” Duval says, smiling. “He said,

‘I can’t wait to get there.’”

Visit http://www.duvalstudio.com to see

more of Jean-Jacques Duval’s work.

Continued from page 49

ART OF GLASS

• 2019 AUTHORS NIGHT: Aug. 13, 7-9PM
  
  
  • 2019 OCTO-BEAR FEST:
    CANCER BENEFIT Oct. 5, 10AM-4PM
  
  
  
  

2019 EVENTS

A Farm-by-Bike Experience

http://www.adirondack.org/btb

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Tucker Farms

Gabriels, NY