Louis Comfort Tiffany

The chief innovation of Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), American painter and designer, was his glasstechnology. He was also a pioneer of the Art Nouveau style.

Louis C. Tiffany was born in New York City on Feb. 18, 1848, the son of the founder and director of the jewelry retailers Tiffany and Company. Louis was interested in painting as a young man; he studied with George Inness and traveled in Europe and Africa, recording his impressions. Because of his pictures' decorative qualities, they were successful in New York.

By the 1870s Tiffany was becoming interested in the decorative arts. He and the painter John La Farge studied glassmaking at the Heidt glassworks in Brooklyn. Their original individual experiments probably concerned stained glass. However, the process whereby an iridescent finish could be produced on glass fascinated Tiffany; he was trying to duplicate the finish seen on ancient Greek, Roman, and other glass which had been buried for many hundreds of years. By 1880 he had applied for patents on this type of finish.

In 1879 he founded the Louis C. Tiffany Company, "Associated Artists." The firm decorated private and public buildings. Two of the best examples of this work in New York City were the 7th Regiment Armory (1880) and the H.O. Havemeyer house (1890; destroyed). In 1892 he founded the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, which specialized in producing stained-glass windows and glass mosaics. By this time he was also producing blown glass for both decorative and table-service use, and in 1893 he established his own furnaces for this purpose. The company was reorganized into Tiffany Studios in 1900.

In the following years, Tiffany produced jewelry, enamels, pottery, lamps, glass, mosaics, and monumental stained-glass windows. He built a palatial home, Laurelton Hall, at Oyster Bay, Long Island, which overshadowed in luxury and visual impact his several residences in New York City. In 1918 Tiffany gave Laurelton Hall (destroyed) to the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, which administered a fellowship program for young artists. The Tiffany firm was not disbanded until 3 years after its founder's death on Jan. 17, 1933.

Tiffany Glass

Tiffany's genius is seen in his decorative productions in glass and metal. For the glass he originated the trademark Favrile, and the name became synonymous with these handmade products of high quality. It is doubtful that Tiffany did much of the glassblowing himself, but he personally supervised the craftsmen and encouraged them to be as inventive as possible. As a result, there are highly individual vases, bottles, and dishes in a multitude of colors and techniques. Some of the pieces were utilitarian, but others were executed often as a pure tour de force. Some were treated with acids which gave the iridescent effect of ancient excavated glass. Another type, called lava glass, resembled volcanic lava. One of the most complicated types was cameo-style glass. After 1900 more or less standardized sets of tableware began to be produced; they do not have the individuality and attention to detail of the purely decorative pieces.

Tiffany glass is marked in a number of ways. Often it is found with scratched marks - the initials L.C.T. or the name spelled out; but the word FAVRILE and various numbers are the marks most often encountered. Sometimes small paper labels, often marked T. G. & D. Co., are pasted to pieces. Not all pieces have a distinguishing mark, however.

Tiffany Metalwork

Metal alloys were used to fashion bowls, boxes, vases, candlesticks, desk sets, and lamps. A number of finishes could be applied to these pieces, so that they varied from a shiny gold to a dark-green bronze patination, which in some instances became almost black. Brightly colored enamels were used on some pieces. The lamps had shades of stained glass which was leaded in flower forms, geometric shapes, or tiles. These pieces are often stamped TIFFANY STUDIOS. In style, they sometimes show the influence of 19th-century historical revivalism. Some of the shapes are derived from classical art, and others are inspired by Egyptian, Byzantine, Romanesque, and even Japanese forms.

However, Tiffany exhibited his most progressive tendencies in pieces in the Art Nouveau style. Indeed, he was one of the few Americans involved in this predominantly European movement, and his works survive as one of its most elegant statements. These pieces are often inspired by nature and conceived as a single unit free from the fussiness of revivalism.

Further Reading

Robert Koch, Louis C. Tiffany: Rebel in Glass (1964), is the only biography. A wide selection of his work is provided in Museum of Contemporary Crafts, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Exhibition (1958).

Additional Sources

Duncan, Alastair, Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York: H.N. Abrams in association with the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1992.

Koch, Robert, Louis C. Tiffany, rebel in glass, New York: Crown, 1982.

(click to enlarge)
Vase of Favrile glass made by Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York City, 1896; in the Victoria and … (credit: Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

(born Feb. 18, 1848, New York, N.Y., U.S. — died Jan. 17, 1933, New York City) U.S. painter, craftsman, philanthropist, decorator, and designer. The son of the famous jeweler Charles Louis Tiffany (1812 – 1902), he studied painting with American painter George Inness and in Paris; he was a recognized painter before he began to experiment with stained glass in 1875. He founded a glassmaking factory in Queens, N.Y., in 1878. There he developed an iridescent glass he called Favrile, which achieved widespread popularity in Europe. After 1900 Tiffany's firm ventured into lamps, jewelry, pottery, and bibelots. He is internationally recognized as one of the greatest forces of the Art Nouveau style.

For more information on Louis Comfort Tiffany, visit Britannica.com.

American decorative artist and designer Tiffany was widely known for his colourful Art Nouveau glassware which proved both influential and fashionable on both sides of the Atlantic. He worked in a wide range of fields including textiles, wallpaper, ceramics, jewellery, interiors, and lighting. Tiffany was born into an artistic background, the son of Charles Tiffany, founder of Tiffany Jewelry and Silversmiths in New York. He was strongly influenced by the writings of John Ruskin and William Morris and visited Europe for the first time in 1865. He studied painting in both the United States and France, later founding the Society of American Artists with John La Farge, a painter and designer of stained glass, in 1877. From this period Tiffany took an increasing interest in the decorative arts, establishing his own successful interior decorating company, Louis C. Tiffany & Associated Artists, in 1878. The company was awarded a number of highly prestigious commissions, including a number of rooms at the presidential White House in Washington, DC, in 1882 to 1883. Tiffany also established a reputation for the design of textiles, wallpapers, and other surface patterns and developed expertise in decorative glass. In 1885 he founded the Tiffany Glass Company at Corona, Long Island, where he gained a reputation for the brightly coloured, delicate, and decorative Favrile glass for which his firm became widely celebrated, especially its lampshades, which often embraced the naturalistically derived sources of Art Nouveau. Tiffany visited the 1889 Paris International Exhibition, where he met the celebrated entrepreneur and promoter of Art Nouveau, Samuel Bing, later to become his exclusive European distributor and promoter. He also exhibited successfully at the Chicago World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893. Tiffany was awarded a Grand Prix at the Paris Exposition Universelle 1900 and at the Turin International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art of 1902, the year in which he became artistic director of the family firm.

American designer, best known for his work in the Art Nouveau style. He evolved interiors for McKim, Mead, & White and Carrère & Hastings, among others. His works include the Chapel for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, IL (1893), parts of which survive, the loggia of Laurelton Hall, NYC (1903–5—re-erected in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art), and the Hanley House, Oyster Bay, NY (1921). He designed many fine artefacts in glass, and his work has been favourably compared with the best French Art Nouveau works of the period.

Bibliography

• Greenhalgh (ed.) (2000)
• D. C. Johnson (1979)
• R. Koch (1966)
• H. McKean (1980)
• Placzek (ed.) (1982)
• Jane Turner (1996)
• Tschudi-Madsen (1967)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

Louis Comfort Tiffany
Born	February 18, 1848(1848-02-18) New York, New York
Died	January 17, 1933 (aged 84) New York, New York
Resting place	Greenwood Cemetery
Education	Pennsylvania Military Academy Eagleswood Military Academy
Known for	Favrile glass
Spouse(s)	Mary Woodbridge Goddard (c1850-1884)
Parents	Charles Lewis Tiffany Harriet Olivia Avery Young

Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass and is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements. Tiffany was affiliated with a prestigious collaborative of designers known as the Associated Artists which included Lockwood de Forest, Candace Wheeler, and Samuel Colman. Tiffany designed stained glass windows and lamps, glass mosaics, blown glass, ceramics, jewelry, enamels and metalwork.^[1]

Contents 1 Personal life 2 Career 3 Death 4 Societies 5 Examples of Tiffany's work 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

Personal life

Louis was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany and Company; and Harriet Olivia Avery Young. Louis married Mary Woodbridge Goddard (c1850-1884) on May 15, 1872 in Norwich, Connecticut and had the following children: Mary Woodbridge Tiffany (1873-1963) who married Graham Lusk; Charles Louis Tiffany I (1874-1874); Charles Louis Tiffany II (1878-1947); and Hilda Goddard Tiffany (1879-1908). After the death of his wife, he married Louise Wakeman Knox (1851-1904) on November 9, 1886. They had the following children: Louise Comfort Tiffany (1887-1974); Julia DeForest Tiffany (1887-1973) who married Gurdon S. Parker then married Francis Minot Weld;^[2] Annie Olivia Tiffany (1888-1892); and Dorothy Trimble Tiffany (1891-1979), who, as Dorothy Burlingham, later became a noted psychoanalyst and lifelong friend and partner of Anna Freud. Many of Tiffany's descendants are active in the arts, politics, and the sciences. Only one descendant is working in glass today — Dr. Rodman Gilder Miller of Seattle, Washington.^{[citation needed]}

He attended school at Pennsylvania Military Academy^[3] in Chester, Pennsylvania, and Eagleswood Military Academy in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. His first artistic training was as a painter, studying under George Inness and Samuel Colman in New York City and Léon Bailly in Paris.

Career

Tiffany's painting depicting a market outside of the walls of Tangier.

Louis Comfort Tiffany started out as a painter. He became interested in glassmaking from about 1875 and worked at several glasshouses in Brooklyn between then and 1878. In 1879, he joined with Candace Wheeler, Samuel Colman and Lockwood de Forest to form Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated American Artists. Tiffany's leadership and talent, as well as by his father's money and connections, led this business to thrive.

A desire to concentrate on art in glass led to the breakup of the firm in 1885, when Tiffany chose to establish his own glassmaking firm later that same year. The first Tiffany Glass Company was incorporated on December 1, 1885, which in 1902 became known as the Tiffany Studios.

The Holy City (1905) – St. John's vision on the isle of Patmos. Having 58 panels, this window is said to be one of the largest made by the Tiffany Studios. It is located at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church (Baltimore, Maryland), which has eleven Tiffany windows.

In the beginning of his career, Tiffany used cheap jelly jars and bottles because they had the mineral impurities that finer glass lacked. When he was unable to convince fine glassmakers to leave the impurities in, he began making his own glass. Tiffany used opalescent glass in a variety of colors and textures to create a unique style of stained glass. This can be contrasted with the method of painting in glass paint or enamels on colorless glass that had been the dominant method of creating stained glass for several hundred years in Europe. (The First Presbyterian Church building of 1905 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is unique in that it uses Tiffany windows that partially make use of painted glass.) Use of the colored glass itself to create stained glass pictures was motivated by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement and its leader William Morris in England. Fellow artist and glassmakers Oliver Kimberly and Frank Duffner, founders of the Duffner and Kimberly company, and John La Farge were Tiffany's chief competitors in this new American style of stained glass. Tiffany, Duffner and Kimberly, along with La Farge, had learned their craft at the same glasshouses in Brooklyn in the late-1870s.

In 1893, Tiffany built a new factory called the Stourbridge Glass Company, later called Tiffany Glass Furnaces, which was located in Corona, Queens, New York. In 1893, his company also introduced the term, Favrile in conjunction with his first production of blown glass at his new glass factory. Some early examples of his lamps were exhibited in the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

He trademarked Favrile (from the old French word for handmade) on November 13, 1894. He later used this word to apply to all of his glass, enamel and pottery. Tiffany's first commercially produced lamps date from around 1895. Much of his company's production was in making stained glass windows and Tiffany lamps, but his company designed a complete range of interior decorations. At its peak, his factory employed more than 300 artisans.

He used all his skills in the design of his own house, the 84-room Laurelton Hall, in the village of Laurel Hollow, on Long Island, New York completed in 1905. Later this estate was donated to his foundation for art students along with 60 acres (243,000 m²) of land, sold in 1949, and was destroyed by a fire in 1957.

The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida houses the world's most comprehensive collection of the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany, including Tiffany jewelry, pottery, paintings, art glass, leaded-glass windows, lamps, and the chapel interior he designed for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. After the close of the exposition, a generous benefactor purchased the entire chapel for installation in the crypt of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York in New York City. As construction on the cathedral continued, the chapel fell into disuse, and in 1916, Tiffany removed the bulk of it to Laurelton Hall. After the 1957 fire, the chapel was rescued by Hugh McKean,^[4] a former art student in 1930 at Laurelton Hall, and his wife Jeannette Genius McKean,^[5] and now occupies an entire wing of the Morse Museum which they founded. Many glass panels from Laurelton Hall are also there; for many years some were on display in local restaurants and businesses in Central Florida. Some were replaced by full-scale color transparencies after the museum opened. A major exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art on Laurelton Hall opened in November 2006. A new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society through 28 May 2007 features new information about the women who worked for Tiffany and their contribution to designs credited to Tiffany.^[6]

Tiffany maintained close ties with the family firm. The Tiffany Company sold many products produced by the studios. He became Artistic Director of Tiffany & Co. after his father's death in 1902. The Tiffany Studios remained in business until 1932.

Death

Louis Comfort Tiffany died on January 17, 1933, and is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.^[7]

Societies

• American Water Color Society
• Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1900
• National Academy of Design in 1880
• Societé des Beaux Arts
• Society of American Artists in 1877

Examples of Tiffany's work

Stained glass windows

Window of St. Augustine, in the Lightner Museum, St. Augustine, Florida.	The Dream Garden by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Maxfield Parrish	Girl with Cherry Blossoms (c. 1890)	The Tree of Life stained glass
The New Creation, at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, Maryland	The Baptism of Christ, at Brown Memorial	The Annunciation to the Shepherds, at Brown Memorial	Nicodemus Came to Him by Night, First Presbyterian Church, Lockport, NY
John the Baptist at Arlington Street Church in Boston	Sermon on the Mount at Arlington Street Church in Boston

Lamps

Tiffany Studios Dragonfly table lamp circa 1902

Dragonfly, modern replica

Laburnum, modern replica

Lotus leaf, modern replica

See also

• Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, Maryland
• Education (Chittenden Memorial Window)
• Louis C. Tiffany Garden Museum Mae Station
• Second Presbyterian Church of Chicago, Illinois
• The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation

References

1. ^ William Warmus. The Essential Louis Comfort Tiffany. New York: Abrams, 2001. Pages 5-8.
2. ^ "Mrs. Parker Weds Francis M. Weld; Daughter of Louis Comfort Tiffany Married at Her Sister's Home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Bridegroom, Bond Broker. He was a Captain of Artillery in World War. Bride Is Former Wife of Gurdon S. Parker.". The New York Times. 1930-08-18. "Mrs. Julia Tiffany Parker, daughter of Louis Comfort Tiffany of this city and Miami, Florida, was married to Francis Minot Weld of 720 Park Avenue yesterday afternoon at the home of the bride's sister, Mrs. Rodman Gilder, Oyster Bay, Long Island." 
3. ^ "Widener University: Distinguished Alumni". Widener University. http://widener.edu/pmcmuseum/distinguishedalumni.asp. Retrieved on 2008-10-06. 
4. ^ Hugh McKean
5. ^ Jeannette Genius McKean
6. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070223/ap_en_ot/art_tiffany_girls
7. ^ "Louis C. Tiffany, Noted Artist, Dies. Philanthropist, Craftsman And Son Of Founder Of Jewelry Firm Pneumonia Victim. Devised Glass Formulae. Decorative Work In Medium Was Widely Known. Devoted Oyster Bay Estate To Students.". New York Times. 1933-01-18. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0817F8355F1A7A93CAA8178AD85F478385F9. Retrieved on 2008-04-14. 

Further reading

• Ernest Edwin Logan (1973). The Church That Was Twice Born-A History of the First Presbyterian Church Of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1773-1973. Pittsburgh, PA: Pickwick-Morcraft.

External links

• Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, Winter Park, Florida
• Eight windows in the Euclid Avenue Temple in Cleveland
• Louis Comfort Tiffany - Artist and Businessman
• Louis Comfort Tiffany at Find A Grave
• Louis C. Tiffany Garden Museum　(Japanese)
• Louis Comfort Tiffany Pictorial Histories
• Press Release on Metropolitan 2006-07 exhibition about Laurelton Hall
• Tiffany and The Associated Artists' work on the Mark Twain House
• Tiffany Lamps - Information, Valuation and History.
• Willard Memorial Chapel

• Media related to Louis Comfort Tiffany at Wikimedia Commons
•  "Tiffany, Louis Comfort". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 

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