Craig the Faithful

G. Owen Bonawit was a prominent American stained-glass and painted glass artist, active from the 1910s to 1941. During this period, he produced original and imitative works of stained glass, pictorial leaded glass, and other decorative architectural elements for homes, schools, and libraries, and other public buildings. His most notable work was a monumental commission for more than six hundred panels of stained glass for the Yale University Library, which was completed between 1930 and 1931. At Cranbrook, Bonawit glasswork appears in Hoey Hall at Cranbrook School, Christ Church Cranbrook, and in Cranbrook House itself.

This panel was installed as a memorial to Craig, the family dog, who died in an accident in the spring of 1921. Craig was a Great Dane, adopted by the Booths in 1920 from his former owner, Captain John Allen Bigelow (1839 - 1925), a resident of Birmingham. This panel was commissioned from Bonawit immediately after Craig’s passing in April. Its design appears to be based on a photograph of Craig, sitting in the circular driveway in front of Cranbrook House, which was presumably sent to Bonawit to aid him in his work. The glass panel was dedicated the following month, after the return of George and Ellen Booth, with a family reading of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Power of the Dog.”

Mariam Hale
2023-2025 Collections Fellow
Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
January 2024