Runar Vilhelm Allén

Runar Vilhelm Allén spent his life between church windows and neon signs, painting in glass when he could and wiring light when he couldn’t. The pelican in Hauho church’s choir window doesn’t just stare back—it pierces its own breast to feed its young, a gory mercy frozen in colored glass. If that story feels too medieval, look up the pelican’s cousin in the bird pavilion at Helsinki’s Korkeasaari island and see how often survival wears a bloody beak.