Donald Moss (1920 - 2010) "Trinity Church" Boston. Signed lower left. Original Oil painting on Illustration Board. Provenance: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation. This painting was published on a Fleetwood First Day Cover for the U.S. 15c Trinity Church, Boston stamp issued on October 9, 1980. Trinity Church, one of America's great nineteenth century churches stands in Boston's Copley Square, both monument and temple of America's freedom of religion and the revolution in American architecture effected by architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886). Originally planned in 1872 at the urging of Trinity Church's Rector Phillips Brooks -- universally known for his beautiful Christmas carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem" -- Trinity Church was consecrated in 1877, but was not completed until 1897. Its style was a free rendering of the French Romanesque which flourished in eleventh century France. Its silhouette was Byzantine. Its lantern tower influenced by Spain's Salamanca Cathedral. And its centralized Byzantine Greek-cross plan inspired by St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice, which the glowing color of the great barrel vaults evokes today. The effect was a temple of worship which made one think he had a pass-key to the Golden Gates. And it was most importantly Richardson's first use of what came to be called Richardson Romanesque style, which made him the first American architect to have an international reputation as well as the most important architect of his generation in America. Though truly neither Richardson's, nor Romanesque, the style inspired thousands of buildings across America between 1880 and 1895, and emphasized honest use of materials and structure -- a principle leading directly to the twentieth century's "new architecture." Image Size: 14.5 x 15 in. Overall Size: 20 x 17.25 in. Unframed. (B06019)