The Last Gargoyle Carver

Frederick Hart carving an owl gargoyle at Washington National Cathedral.

When Frederick Hart took a job as a clerk in the mail room at Washington National Cathedral, he did so primarily for the purpose of pestering the Cathedral's master stone carver, Roger Morigi. Back then, Rick was an aspiring sculptor. He wanted Morigi to take him on as an apprentice, and teach him the ancient techniques of the trade. In time, it worked. Morigi became a mentor to Rick.

First, Morigi put Rick to work on ornaments like ceiling bosses and gargoyles. Gargoyles have long been a distinctive feature of Gothic architecture, and because they were so high up, and far from view, Rick’s rookie mistakes would be less noticeable there.

As his training progressed, Rick acquired more and more responsibilities, and he would be tasked with creating a number of key sculptural elements within the Cathedral’s most cherished spaces. In the 1970s, Rick gave up his job as a stone carver at the Cathedral, in order to explore working in other sculptural mediums.

In one of the very first opportunities he ever had to read his name in print, Rick was interviewed by a reporter about some of his early work on the Cathedral. It ran under the headline, “He May Be Last Gargoyle Carver.” According to the reporter, Rick was “destined to become the last of the gargoyle virtuosos.” Rick declared the Cathedral to be “the last stand for this kind of workmanship in stone.”

Built according to traditional medieval methods, Washington National Cathedral was something of an architectural oddity. All around it, more modern modes of architecture had long been in vogue, modes of architecture dominated by plain undecorated surfaces and machine-manufactured elements. Throughout Washington, as throughout much of the modern urban landscape, the tradition of hand-crafted architectural decoration was on the verge of disappearing.

As it happened, Rick was not the last of the gargoyle carvers. The tradition survives. He would be outlived by his own assistant, Jay Hall Carpenter, now an accomplished sculptor in his own right.

Among his many works, Carpenter is responsible for sculpting what may be the most famous of all the Gothic architectural sculptures at Washington National Cathedral: the Darth Vader grotesque.