Stained-glass artist Larry Zgoda loved the unusual, whimsical and wacky.While exploring Old Town in the early 1980s, he was drawn to several buildings, such as Carl Street Studios and the Walter Guest Apartments, that boasted murals, woodcarvings, stained glass and metalwork like he'd never before s een.He asked around,and learned they were creations of Edgar Miller, a celebrated Chicago artist and designer in the '20s and '30s who had faded into obscurity after World War II.Mr. Zgoda read everything he could on Miller, asked around some more, and learned Miller was still alive and living in California.He wrote Miller a letter, beginning a yearlong correspondence that led to their first meeting in 1984 and an agreement to collaborate on creating a stained-glass window for a Chicago church. It was the first of many such collaborations between the two, with Miller designing and Mr. Zgoda fabricating. Miller even moved back to Chicago.Mr. Zgoda felt Miller was a talent on the level of a Frank Lloyd Wright, but without the accompanying recognition. So he began cataloging and archiving information on Miller, who died in 1993.Mr. Zgoda helped found Edgar Miller Legacy, a non-profit that seeks to preserve Miller's work. Larry Zgoda (left) with Edgar MillerEdgar Miller Legacy "If it weren't for Larry, the world wouldn't know the story and work of Edgar," said Zac Bleicher, executive director of the group.Mr. Zgoda's research provided the framework for the book “Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home: Chicago’s Forgotten Renaissance Man,” which was written by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams and published in 2009."I was amazed that Larry, an amazing artist in his own right, was so willing to share all this research he'd done without any reservations, how selfless he was about putting Miller in the spotlight and not taking any credit," Cahan said.Mr. Zgoda died Feb. 9 from cancer. He was 75."There was beauty in the built environment threaded throughout Larry's life, and after he met Edgar he really flourished," said Mr. Zgoda's wife, Joan Zgoda.He opened Larry Zgoda Studio on the Northwest Side in 1978 after studying film at Columbia College Chicago and learning how to work with glass largely on his own."He was a fun-loving artist, man. He thought outside the box," said Mark Radina, who used help Mr. Zgoda fabricate stained glass. "We'd be cracking jokes all the time listening to many varieties of music, from the Ramones through classical and Edith Piaf. It was just really fun working with him."Early in Mr. Zgoda's career, he created a few knockoffs to pay the bills, but he quickly found that it didn't satisfy him. He later devoted himself to proving that stained glass was a living art, fully adaptable to contemporary architecture."I hate to say it, but almost everybody who works in my craft is replicating Frank Lloyd Wright, replicating Tiffany, replicating Victorian-era stuff," Mr. Zgoda told the Sun-Times in 2006. "Anybody can do that — it's paint-by-numbers. What I want to do is create things that never existed before." A stained-glass window by Larry Zgoda.Al Podgorski/Sun-Times Among Mr. Zgoda's largest and most striking architectural installations are his doors and windows for buildings at a convent in Lemont, a synagogue in Evanston, the Clearing and Logan Square branches of the Chicago Public Library, an office tower in Minneapolis and the University of Denver's Graduate School of Social Work."He looked like a middle-class Chicago guy, but that's not the way he thought. Wrapped up in the middle of him was this alternate universe," Cahan said.Unique stained-glass windows and standalone pieces, often displayed on easels he built and priced from several hundred to several thousand dollars, can be found in homes and collections around Chicago."Larry was endlessly curious. Gentle. Kind. Creative. Generous. And so unassuming despite his own significant body of work as well as important collaborations with Edgar," said friend and architect P.K. "Trish" VanderBeke.Mr. Zgoda was born Oct 7, 1950, and grew up in Bucktown and Arlington Heights. His father, Alexander, was a mailman and a woodworker. His mother, Augustina, was a seamstress.Mr. Zgoda most recently lived in Woodstock but for many years lived near Irving Park Road and Western Avenue, not far from his North Side studio."It was pretty cool walking into his studio, there would be rows and rows of glass and all kinds of jewels and metal and other cool stuff, and Larry was always so willing to talk about art and design," Bleicher said. Services have been held. ...read more read less