L.C. Tiffany. Lamp
The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art. Winter Park, Florida. Evergreen Museum. Baltimore, Maryland. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Louis Comfort Tiffany’s recommended museums
The renowned scholar on the life and work of Louis Comfort Tiffany and first curator of artistic glass at the Chrysler Museum (Norfolk, Virginia) Paul E. Doros describes the economic and social framework that led Tiffany to success: “In the middle of the nineteenth century the Revolution Industrial in the United States was quickly transforming the country’s rural agrarian -based economy into an urban, manufacturing-based one and enabling the rise of an American financial aristocracy that wielded enormous power, influence and wealth. This new class strove to display its elevated status as ostentatiously as possible by building ever-larger and more significant mansions and accumulating great collections of fine arts and decorative art. At the same time, the increasing number of European immigrants and the swift territorial expansion of the United States necessitated the rapid construction of churches and others houses of worship. Many expressed the desire for these newly built mansions and churches to be decorated and furnished in a truly American style. Tiffany came along and filled that niche”. He declared that his life-long goal was “the pursuit of beauty”. He did much more than that: he brought beauty into the American way of life.
L.C. Tiffany. Spiderweb lamp. The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of Art. Winter Park (Florida)
According to Alice Cooney, curator of the American Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, originally, “Tiffany was a connoisseur and like many others surrounded themselves and adorned their studios with artful arrangements and objects. We are in the Aesthetic era in the 1870s and 1880’s. When Tiffany first entered the arena of producing blown art glass vases, he marketed his output to collectors and connoisseurs already well conditioned to the idea of acquiring art objects for home display. Consistent with the concept of producing works for collectors was the idea of making of one-of-a-kind- art objects; the idea of works that there were no two alike.”
L. C. Tiffany. Favrile Glass vase. Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Artistic glass in America
Alice Cooney points out that Venice was in the artistic glass production background in America. The revival of traditional Murano techniques in the mid-nineteenth century gained worldwide attention and was the primary impetus for the avid collecting-and copying- of Venetian glass later in the century. Venetian techniques inspired some of the earliest American glass makers, with encouragement from British reformers John Ruskin and Charles Locke Eastlake who extolled the wonders of Venetian glass in their much read publications. Venetian glass became more readily accessible to the public in 1881, when a large collection was given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by James Jackson Jarves in honor of his father, whom he called “the first man in America to establish the manufacture of this beautiful article on a large scale”.
The Mount Washington Glass Company in New Bedford, Massachussetts was the first company in America to make and patent a new kind of art glass derived from Venetian examples, called Sicilian or Lava glass.
Mount Washington Glass Company. Sicilian/Lava glass vase
Also, there was a particular fascination with the Islamic world, the exotic art of which also inspired Tiffany in many media throughout his career; the glass makers at the Mount Washington Glass Company introduced various lines of artistic glassware with complex gilded and enameled decoration that conjured up images of Islamic mosque lamps.
It is said that Tiffany style is genuinely American, but from the point of view of Art History, I don’t think so. The artist could not have been what he was without his relationship with Europe and the artistic legacy of ancient civilizations. Throughout his life he accumulated an immense knowledge about art and crafts of all the times. He loved, collected and studied the art of Phoenicia and Egypt, the art of the Islamic, Byzantine and Chinese world and stained glass of the best Gothic cathedrals in Europe.
Emile Gallé vase
As a cosmopolitan and well traveled figure he was aware of contemporary art glass and Art Nouveau had captured his imagination, actually, his work belongs to Art Nouveau style; his many seasons in Vienna and Paris with artists and friends had influenced his definite appeal. He knew well Emile Gallés’s art glass made in the 1880’s, in Nancy, France, and Christopher Dresser’s works in Glasgow, Scotland. He also admired the fine art of Chinese. He wanted to imitate its imperial yellow-gold iridescent and to match the skill of these Chinese refined makers of porcelain. So, Tiffany saw his own work as part of a larger continuum in the making of glass, dating back to antiquity. And many of these ancient objects were in their own collection.
L.C. Tiffany. Yellow/gold iridescent vase
Louis Comfort Tiffany was born February, 18, 1848, in New York city, son of Charles and Harriet Tiffany. His father was a co-founder, and later owner, of the business that became Tiffany& Company, the world-renowned jewelry and silver retailer. According to Paul E. Doros, “the boy was small and delicate, being observed with great care by the nurses to safeguard the child’s health. As the first son, Louis was expected to join and take over the family business. Some of his personal traits, however, gives his father reason to question that assumption. Louis displayed an intelligent, quick mind, yet he was constantly getting into trouble with his brother and two sisters. Furthermore, he seemed more drawn to the art world, always making small sketches of the nearby landscapes.”
In an attempt to give him the discipline required to manage a commercial enterprise, his parents enrolled him in the Pennsylvania Military Academy (Chester) and later in the Eagleswood Military Academy in New Jersey. Booth schools failed to have the desired effect, Louis declined to attend college or join family business, declaring instead to become a professional artist. So, in 1886 he returned to New York and soon began studying painting full time under the tutelage of noted landscapist George Innes. Of greater significance than his lessons with Innes were Tiffany’s trips to Europe and North Africa sanctioned by his family. These trips had a profound influence on the development of Tiffany’s painting style and directly impacted the subject of many of his early paintings which were of “Oriental scenes”.
Louis Comfort Tiffany. View of Cairo (1872)
At 27 years old he was successful with his paintings, that were displayed in art galleries, auctions rooms and well received by the press. Tiffany became firmly entrenched in the American painting establishment. He was admitted into the National Academy of Design and elevated to academician in 1880. Although Tiffany’s painting style was certainly never considered revolutionary or radical and he was not in top of the line Doros says: “an increasing number of his picturesque works were critical failures, the promise fueled by his youthful efforts gradually fading. The failure to attain the heights of the American art hierarchy was a severe disappointment for Tiffany. He continued to paint for the rest of his life but in 1879 he decided to change careers and founded the interior decoration firm Louis C. Tiffany and Associates Artist.”
As he wrote later in his life: “It is all a matter of education, and we shall never have good art in our homes until people learn to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly”. According to Doros, Tiffany was sincerely convinced that he was the person best qualified to teach Americans what constituted artistic beauty.
Pennsylvania Treasure, a desk set from the American Indian series
Their former traveling companion were Samuel Colman, Candace Wheeler and Lockwood De Forest. The four were involved with the Society of Decorative Art organization with the mission of training “distressed gentlewoman”, so that they could earn a livehood in the field of either decorative textiles or painted ceramics. Tiffany taught classes in embellishment unglazed pottery.
The company’s first commission, a drop curtain for Manhattan’s new Madison Square Theatre, was met with great acclaim, and the second commission for the Seventh Regiment Armory with a combine decoration of Moorish, Celtic and Asian influences was “considered the most magnificent apartment of its kind in this country”. So, Louis C. Tiffany and Associates was soon acknowledge as one of the country’s leading interior decorators and had an impressive list of clients including Mark Twain or Cornelius Vanderbilt II. The company’s status was confirmed when President Chester A. Arthur selected it to redecorate the White House in 1882.
The White House decoration with stained glass. Washington D.C
The beginnings with the glass
Tiffany had included leaded-glass windows in several of his interior designs, the most noteworthy, the vestibule of the White House, and in a lot of churches. The artistic and commercial success of these early efforts was one reason for Tiffany’s decision, in 1885, to dissolve the business of Louis C. Tiffany and Associates and create a new firm, The Tiffany Glass and Company, and enter in the burgeoning field of leaded-glass windows. He knew the growing number of churches being constructed, a large audience could be exposed to and thereby appreciate his work.
Stained glass. Arlington Church Street. Boston, Massachussets
Tiffany had several significant advantages to be successful. First, he and his wealthy financial supporters had the means to advertise and market their product to a much greater extent that any of his competitors. His social status, as well as access to his father’s friends and clientele, was also a distinct advantage in winning commissions.
Opalescent glass creation controversial
Opalescent glass is a generalized term for clear and semi-opaque pressed glass, cloudy, marbled, and sometimes accented with subtle coloring all combining for form a milky opalescence in the glass. Produced in the cooling process creates the milky opalescent effect, which illuminates any coloration when light shines on it. Is like to use glass in creating beautiful visual scenes in art without painting. In fact is a radical new treatment whereby several colors were combined and manipulated to create an unprecedented range of hues and three-dimensional effects.
L.C. Tiffany. Opalescent glass detail
Opalescent glass, however, was firmly rejected by another important school of the stained glass revival, which advocated the Gothic tradition of painting with enamel on clear, uniformly colored “antique” glass. Tiffany believed that this new material allowed more fidelity to the inherent nature of the medium, because it enabled form to be defined by the glass itself rather than by painting onto the glass.
Tiffany should be considered the creator of the opalescent glass. But his main problem was to have to compete with John La Farge and Louis Heidt in experimenting on glass. All three claimed the opalescent glass paternity. Doros explains in detail that the artist John Lafarge was Tiffany’s chief rival in the field, and both men were equally credited with several major innovations: the use of the opalescent, rather than the transparent glass; the use of the lead lines to define and emphasize the design; the plating or layering of different colors of glass; and the near total absence of painted features. La Farge claimed experimentation on opalescent glass with the invention of a new kin of opalescent glass that cultivated irregularities of saturation and density to give motion and shadow to his form. His first order of glass dates from 1874. Harvard University commissioned a stained glass representing Columbus and Knight Bayard. The window was finished in June of 1875, but rejected due to the high cost. In doing this work he was disappointed by the poverty of what the glass manufacturers offered him and in 1876, he began to experiment with opalescent glass and worked with two glass makers of which he does not give the name. In a stained glass window commissioned by Dr. Richard Henry Derby on Long Island he introduced some new glasses: they are opalescent, one inscribes: ”This opal made June 25, 1879”. After the execution of this prototype and its exhibition in NY it was hailed as“the first application of a new material to windows”. La Farge states that it was he who showed the way to Tiffany, who had gone to his workshop to observe his new crystals.
John La Farge. Stained glass. Benjamin Franklin Crane Memorial (1890). Quincy, Massachussets
Tiffany never mentioned that he had visited La Farge. He works his first opalescent glasses in many stained glass, but the dates of execution are imprecise. And some of the first ones have disappeared like those of an Islip church. However, there is an 1889 press article attributing to Tiffany the idea of using opalescent glass in a stained glass. In a conference in 1917 Tiffany claimed to have been the first to use it. But he said it when La Farge has already died in 1910. So, his long rivalry with John La Farge is known, arriving at a judgment at the initiative of La Farge in 1882.
L.C. Tiffany. Stained glass. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Jean François Luneau, an Art Historian professor of the Université Blaise Pascal based in Clermond-Ferrand (France) claims Heidt’s presence in Tiffany’s experiments in the beginnings of the opalescent glass. Louis Heidt, born in 1835 in Goetz (France), emigrated to the United States in 1859 and in 1864 he became a naturalized American. In 1880 he is cited as glass maker. Louis Heidt was the owner of a glass house in Brooklyn in 1886. Louis Heidt and Company was one of the very few manufacturers of opalescent sheet glass in the United States. In May 1894 an article from the Chicago Daily credits him as the inventor of opalescent glass.
In 1976, Heidt’s granddaughter found in the archives of the Rakow Research Library of the Corning Museum of Glass, a 1881 document of agreement between Louis Heidt and Louis Comfort Tiffany & Co., Associated Artist by which Heidt will exclusively manufacture decorative purposes for the company of Tiffany and will make experiments to discover new processes. Heidt undertakes to keep all manufacturing procedures in secret, he was prohibited from divulging the purpose or results of any technical and scientific experiments he conducted on Tiffany’s behalf. Tiffany agrees to purchase each month a quantity of glass that can’t be less than 200 $. According to Luneau its agreement marks the development of opalescent glass and was a greatest advantage for Tiffany. This guaranteed source of superior-quality glass, nearby and at a low price, was a key factor in the Tiffany glass Company’s becoming the dominant designer and producer of leaded-glass windows in the United Estates. The company produced a large number of both ecclesiastical and residential windows that generally received high praise in the New York press and a few national publications. The firm achieved international fame at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition in 1883. They used the World Fair to display the full range of its production. Its pavilion attracted 1.8 million visitors in just three months.
In 1892 to increase its purchases of glass and to diversify its sources of provisioning Tiffany decided to establish his own glass work and founded a new company Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company and opened a new factory in Corona, a Queens neighborhood. In this new path, he hired the best professionals, one of them was Arthur J. Nash, an English glass maker, who had worked in several British glasshouses where he experimented with iridescent glasses. In 1893 he traveled to the United States to explore the possibility of opening his own factory. Met Tiffany and the two men agreed to become partners and create the Stourbridge Glass Company (name of the Nash hometown in England). Nash persuaded Tiffany to have the company producing blown-glass objects as well as sheet glass. The production began in 1893.
Disaster struck the company when a fire destroyed the glasshouse because of negligence. The financial lost was of little consequence for Tiffany who was one of America’s wealthier man, Nash was ruined. This disaster restructured the relationship between both men. Tiffany rebuild the site, Nash agreed to relinquish all artistic control to Tiffany and the glass house’s name was changed to Tiffany Furnaces in 1902 as a consequence of the reincorporation of Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company as Tiffany Studios.
Take off
Tiffany take off is fixed in 1892, related to the American artistic situation. Paul E. Doros points out: “American citizens had suffered from a deep-seated inferiority complex about their place in the world of art and had desperately sought a way to counter the perceived artistic superiority of Europe. America needed a medium it could master, excel at, and embrace, and it was Louis. C. Tiffany and his leaded-glass windows that came to the fore.” The firm’s international reputation was cemented a few years later as a result of its exhibition of leaded glass, blown glass, and enameled copper objects at the 1900 Paris Exposition, where it received a Grand Prix and two gold medals.
L. C.Tiffany. Gooseneck vase.
Tiffany Studios reached their zenith around 1907. The factory employed 540 workers and the firm produced an incredible variety of objects: leaded-glass windows, leaded-glass lampshades, vases, pottery, rugs, mosaics, granite mausoleums, wood cabinets, enamelware, bronze metalwork, some with delicate and original forms like the Gooseneck series, vases with goose neck forms.
Favrile glass
Tiffany’s aesthetic was based on his conviction that nature should be the primary source of design inspiration. Intoxicated by color, he translated into glass the lush palette found in flowers, plants, birds and insects. This fascination with nature and with extending the capabilities of the medium led to the exploration of another technique called Favrile. The name, he declared, was taken from an old English word for hand made: “Is a new word derived from latin words faber, fabrico, fabrilis that it can be used in describing any object made by hand.” Favrile glass quickly gained international renown for its surface iridescence and brilliant colors. So, all the glass manufactured by Tiffany Studios was soon called Favrile.
L. C. Tiffany. Favrile Glass vase
In fact is an opalescent glass characterized by blended colors, exotic shapes, luster and iridescent surfaces, and unusual textures; it broke a new ground with its never-seen-before effects. The creation of glass in an almost infinite array of colors and color combinations, with a refractive nature ranging from transparent to opaque and a wide variety of reflective iridescent surface, was the basis of Favrile’s enormous critical acclaim and artistic success. Tiffany defined his favrile glass:”Is distinguished by brilliant or deeply toned colors, usually iridescent like the wings of certain American butterflies, the necks of pigeons and peacocks, the wing covers of various beetles.”
In 1894 it held the first exhibition of Favrile glass blown into unique forms, produced by Tiffany. The American public was astonished, and a bit confounded, as the only artistic glass known to most was transparent brilliant cut glass, with its precise geometric patterns and standard familiar shapes.
L.C. Tiffany. Favrile glass vases
Already mentioned, Arthur Nash was constantly experimenting glass formulas. He devises an innovative formula for the glass mixtures and a multitude of chemical combinations for achieving hundreds of different colors. Nash, with additional chemicals, often supplemented the basic formula. As Doros points out “opalescence was usually achieved by one of two chemical additives: fluorine was a general opacifier while phosphate was a reactive agent that create opacity when the glass was reintroduced to heat. Tiffany furnaces used 130 chemicals!”
Nash was also “responsible for creating the myriad of colors required for the sheet glass and desired for the blown glass. The addition of metallic oxides was the general method employed: uranium oxide for yellow, cobalt oxide for blue and copper oxide in conjunction with ferrous sulfate for green. Nash developed formulas that allowed the glass to be made in dozen of shades of each color, as well as more unusual colors. Various reds by adding selenium dioxide, cuprous oxide or gold chloride.”
Flower form vase
Dr. Parker C. McIlhiney was the other scientific genius in the glasshouse specialized in the chemical analysis of varnishes and lacquers. Artificial surface iridescent was invented by McIlhiney: “He found that if certain metallic salts were applied to the surface of the hot glass, the salts were reduced and formed a thin layer of metallic oxide that was firmly attached to the glass itself. This created a highly reflective surface, an effect that was amplified by the crystallized silver within the glass. And he realized that different metallic salts, when reduced, created different iridescent colors. For example, iron chloride changed to iron oxide on the glass, leaving a brassy red shade, and the combination of these two salts formed a gold iridescent. A rumor circulated that the application of real gold to the objects created the effect.” It was almost impossible to imitate. And that distinguished Tiffany’s glass from that made by any other glasshouse in the world. In 1895 they hit the colors, they made the first vase of Tiffany iridescent glass with Nash and McIlhiney. They were acknowledged for their contributions at the 1900 Paris Exposition, awarded with medals.
L. C. Tiffany. Iridescent Byzantine vase
As an ancient glass collector Tiffany was fascinated by the iridescence resulted from the gradual deterioration of the object’s surface while it lay buried in the ground for centuries. Laboratories could produce artificially on modern glass at a reasonable cost this effects, as he put on record in a group of pieces, especially the ones of the Byzantine series.
Louis C. Tiffany’s role in the actual glass production has long been a matter of debate. I have already discussed the controversy over La Farge and Heidt about opalescent glass. Leslie Nash, one of the Arthur Nash’s sons who worked at Tiffany Furnaces constantly complained that Tiffany was essentially a dilettante who knew exceptionally little about glass making: “Don’t let ever tell you that Louis C. Tiffany invented Favrile glass. I personally made it for over 25 years and he never saw the inside of the lab or ever mentioned a chemical to me and he did not know to make a luster glass…. But our publicity always said it was made under the personal supervision of L.C.T.- NUTS”. Arthur V. Rose,who headed the china and glass department at Tiffany & Company, held a similar opinion: “Arthur Nash was the whole thing and I could prove it about making Favrile Glass”.
L.C. Tiffany. Favrile glass
Paul E. Doros thinks that’s probably true that he didn’t blown glass but he knew all about glass as a collector and certainly he was supervising all stuff, he enjoyed spending a considerable time at Stourbridge glass and Tiffany Furnaces. Other employees said he was there. It was a big company. “The company may not have been a worker’s paradise, but very few of the employees complained about either management or their environment, and long careers were more the norm than the exception at Tiffany Furnaces, it was like a family-like atmosphere, the strongest bond among the people who worked at Tiffany Furnaces was the shared knowledge and pride that they were producing world-renowned objects unlike any others in the history of glass making (…) It was a place where a glass maker was an artist as well as a craftsman”. Perhaps Tiffany was like an orchestra conductor, in a way of Walt Disney who was not the author of all the drawings and characters of his films but defined the style. Maybe the clue is that Tiffany was not a scientific man, he was an aesthetic man. Tiffany implied that these objects were designed for aesthetic, rather than utilitarian, purposes. He also emphasized that each piece created by his glasshouse was one of a kind, just like any work of fine art. For example, production mistakes or “accidents”, flaws such as surface air bubbles, iron bits flaking off the blowpipe onto the glass and irregular shapes were of no concern. Only artistic failure condemned a piece.
L. C. Tiffany. Dragonfly lamp
The woman who worked in the company received public acknowledgment. Most of them were the lamps and glass windows designers. These women were known as the “Tiffany Girls”. None of the women were allowed to participate in the actual glass making process (too physically demanding). Louis C. Tiffany was long- time proponent of hiring women, as he believed they had a finest sense of color and were able to distinguish tonal difference. But, incomprehensible from the current perspective, they had to be unmarried, if they got married they were fired. Clara and Mr.Tiffany by Susan Vreeland is a bad novel, but describes the role of these women in the company especially those that were dedicated to the design of the lamps.
We can identify immediately a Tiffany’s object. When he liked a particular motif, a landscape or an atmospheric effect, he tried to reproduce it all on glass; he and his artist/ chemistry assistants tried out forms and techniques until they found the desired aesthetic result, and then they began to make series of similar pieces, unique pieces each one. So, they have been able to classify their objects, basically vases, by series according to the motif of inspiration. Among others, the most celebrated series are:
Flower form vases
L. C. Tiffany. Flower form vase
The standard construction of he flower form vases was established by 1898. Favrile glass vases in the form of flowers were one of the first distinctive shapes produced by the glass house. The inspiration for the shape was Tiffany’s love of nature and knowledge of botany. That, and Nash’s probable awareness of flower shaped vases being produce in England and Italy, served as a sufficient impetus for gaffer Thomas Manderson, who is credited with developing and refining the motif. They usually consisted of a variegated and swirled glass bowl on a thick, sometimes contorted or curved stem raised on an applied circular foot. The shapes are delightful in their simplicity. They tried to emulate a wide variety of flowers, not imitation, just simply to give a suggestion of the lily, the crocus and the tulip with nuances of great refinement and beauty.
Byzantine
L. C. Tiffany. Tel el- Amarna- Byzantine vase
Tiffany’s knowledge and fondness for ancient art influenced many of the styles develop in his glass work. This included Byzantine Art, his predilection for which was recognized by several critics. Tiffany Furnaces created a line of glass featuring a horizontal band of intersecting zigzags that the called Byzantine. Mistakenly have been known as Tel el-Amarna in reference to the very specific ancient Egypt shade of blue. When Tiffany went to Egypt he made a study of the methods of the Egyptian potters in order to get hold of their secrets. He has succeeded in producing a turquoise glass similar of what have been found in Egypt.
Lava
L. C. Tiffany. Lava vases
Another series have a transparent amber body, bright gold interior iridescence and a thin texture, dark navy overlay enhanced by thick, irregular drippings of transparent amber glass with heavy gold iridescence. The rough, black areas were made by introducing bits of basalt or talc into the molten glass formed into vases in organic, irregular shapes. The feature reminds lava flowing down the side of a volcano.
Aquamarine
L. C. Tiffany. Aquamarine vase
He returned from a trip to Bahamas inspired by the marine and aquatic life he had seen there. The Aquamarine vases use transparent, green tinted glass that designs the decorative motifs ranged from goldfish, jellyfish, water lilies and marine vegetation, to sea anemones. There were a limited productions of Aquamarine because of the difficulty to made them.
Agate
L. C. Tiffany. Agate vase
Tiffany loved pebbles and small stones that washed up on the shores of Long Island and New England. This pebbles were very richly colored and have been called agates. While he was using these stones for windows and leaded lamps, he was inspired to create glass that imitated agates obtaining a proliferation of remarkable shapes and colors.
Peacock
L. C. Tiffany. Peacock vase
Peacock was one of his favorite motifs and he incorporate it into the full range of his work, from his leaded-glass window to his jewelry. And it suited both the decor of mansions and the decoration of churches. The peacock was a symbol of immortality to the ancient Romans. Tiffany was attracted to the feather’s iridescent blues and greens. And they found a fine metallic sparkle used by Venetian glass makers: aventurine which is a type of quartz that contains small, shiny mineral inclusions that reflects light, causing the quartz to glimmer and sparkle.
Lamps
L. C. Tiffany. Lamp. The Charles Hosmer Museum, Winter Pak, Florida
Here again was shown the pioneering genius of this master. Bronze lamp bases an architectural fitment with various colorful designs, prominently in flora and some with dragonflies and some with strips of lead in the shape of a spider. Nowadays their lamps are facing a tremendous revival, specially the so-called Lily lamps. A most delightful decorative table, floor and hanged lamp. Although Tiffany’s craftsmen used patterns to make lampshades, each was unique due to the selection of the individual pieces of glass with their varied colors, motifs and densities. Exemplified his known quote: “Color is to eye what music is to ear”
Mosaics
L. C. Tiffany. Detail of mosaic. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Mosaics were also a natural progression and extension of Tiffany’s work in Favrile and leaded glass. Glass mosaics were used in interior settings, initially for church interiors and fireplace surrounds, but then developed into full artistic mural works. Inspired by Byzantine churches Tiffany surveyed on his European travels that used flat, solid-color squares, or tesserae, he improved upon the tradition by incorporating innovative techniques of modeling and shading to produce a wide range of colors within glass. Glass was also cut into different shapes to enhance pictorial qualities. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a big collection of them.
Stain Glass
L. C.Tiffany. Stained glass. United States Naval Academy, chapel. Annapolis (Maryland)
Much of this work was for churches, whose patronage Tiffany often put at risk because of his strong preference for landscapes instead of traditional religious figural scenes. Tiffany’s Favrile glass enabled artists to substitute random tonal gradations, lines, textures, and densities inherent in the material itself for the pictorial details usually painted onto the glass. Tiffany’s workshops would go on to design and fabricate literally thousands of leaded-glass windows for churches, mausoleums, schools, and other buildings across the country and abroad. One of the most spectacular is located in the United States Naval Academy of Annapolis (Maryland). (My dear friends Yvonne and Margie took me there and I could admire them as well as the magnificent one of St. Anne Church. Thank you very much you both!)
From the 1930’s of the 20th century the general public considered Tiffany a relic of a bygone era, a man who refused to accept contemporary artistic styles and tastes. They were the times of the Art Deco geometries and the European vanguards. This current of anti-Tiffany opinion, remained until 1958 when the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York presented the first major retrospective of Tiffany. Critics and public alike reappraised Louis Comfort Tiffany as well as Pop Art artists.
Final days
In his personal life, according to Paul E. Doros, at work Tiffany was stern and decisive, at home, a loving husband and affectionate father who endured the deaths of both his wives and three of his children. He had two daughters and two sons with his first wife, Mary Woodbridge and another four children with his second Louise Wakeman Knox. Tiffany donated much to charity throughout his life especially the Infirmary for Woman and Children due to their extremely sad personal circumstances. He contributed to combat yellow fever in the South and flood victims in Ohio. During the Depression he hired unemployed local workers to thin out the forests around Laurelton Hall, his country state in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Tiffany led an active life outside Tiffany Studios. He was an knowledgeable botanist and a respectable tennis player and a his speed car enthusiast caused traffic accidents regularly. An avid photographer and traveled frequently to Europe, Middle East and across USA. Upon his father’s dead in 1902, he was named co-director of the Art Department at Tiffany& Company. He spent considerable time designing jewelry for the firm of which he had not wanted to take over in his youth.
L. C. Tiffany. Jewelry
Tiffany’s long-time role in Tiffany Studios ended in 1919 when, at the age of 71 he retired and established the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in his Laurelton Hall residence. He was dismayed by the path contemporary art has taken and hoped that his foundation would remind young artists that “true art” was based on nature and that they should never “wander after curiosities of technique, vaguely hoping they may light on some invention which will make them famous”. He spent the remainder of his life focused on his Foundation, foreign travel and enjoyed their mansions in Manhattan, Laurelton Hall and Miami (in winter). He died in 1933 at 84 of pneumonia.
L. C. Tiffany. Laurelton Hall Stained glass. Charles Hosmer Morse Museum. Winter Park, Florida
Laurelton Hall was his masterpiece. Built at the height of his career, between 1902 and 1905, the eighty-four-room, eight-level estate was situated on nearly 600 acres overlooking Cold Spring Harbor in Oyster Bay, New York. A showcase for his unique integration of nature and exoticism, Laurelton Hall was the ultimate expression of Tiffany’s aesthetic ideals, envisioned as a total work of art. This was his dream home, where creativity flowed freely and convention was eschewed in place of novelty. The loss of Laurelton Hall by fire in 1957 was a calamity of great magnitude. It burned to the ground for two days. It could have become the Louis Comfort Museum for ever.
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Laurelton Hall
Remains of Laurelton Hall. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Sadly destroyed, the majority of windows and other surviving architectural pieces were salvaged by Hugh McKean and Jeannette Genius McKean of the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art and shipped to Winter Park (Florida). This is the reason why I strongly recommend visiting these museum.
Tiffany chapel 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Charles Hosmer Morse Museum, Winter Park, Florida
The Morse Museum houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany including the artist designer’s jewelry, pottery, paintings, glass, leaded-glass lamps and windows, furnishings, etc. Among the most fascinating, the outstanding interior chapel that Tiffany created for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was Tiffany’s work at this exposition, and most especially the chapel, that clearly established him internationally as one of the leading artists/designers worldwide.
Steve Jobs, a visionary with a lamp created around 100 years ago by another visionary, Louis Comfort Tiffany
A last Tiffany quote: “I have always striven to fix beauty in wood, stone, glass or pottery, in oil or watercolor by using whatever seemed fittest for the expression of beauty, that has been my creed.”
Àngels Ferrer i Ballester
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