Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American stained glass artist and jewelry designer. He is best known for his stained glass, but also designed works in blown glass, ceramics, and metal. Tiffany’s innovations in stained glass, including his patented Favrile glass, and his influence on the Art Nouveau style continue to have an impact on the decorative arts. Tiffany Studios closed in 1928, but his legacy lives on through his breathtaking glass work. The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Orlando, Florida currently houses the largest collection of Tiffany’s artwork.
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American stained glass artist and jewelry designer during the turn of the 20th century. Although he is best known for his stained glass, Tiffany also designed works in blown glass, ceramics, and metal. The Tiffany lamp, a table lamp with a stained glass shade, is one of the best-known examples of the Art Nouveau style and continues to be frequently copied.
Louis Comfort Tiffany was born in New York City on February 18, 1848. His parents were Charles Lewis Tiffany, the founder of the silver and jewelry store Tiffany and Company, and Harriet Olivia Avery Young. He attended Eagleswood Military Academy in New Jersey before turning to the study of art. He began his artistic career as a painter, studying with landscape painters George Inness and Samuel Colman in New York and traveling abroad to study with Parisian painter Leon Bailly.
Tiffany’s father’s craft may have inspired him to turn his talents to the decorative arts. He began working in glass around 1875 and formed his first business venture, an interior decorating firm called Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated American Artists, four years later. Samuel Colman and the designer Lockwood de Forest were his business partners. Tiffany continued to experiment and push the limits of glass as an artistic medium, and when her interior decorating business dissolved in 1884, her glass manufacturing company was soon emerging. Tiffany Glass Company, renamed Tiffany Studios in 1900, would remain the commercial outlet for Tiffany’s work throughout his career.
Louis Comfort Tiffany was responsible for some significant innovations in the world of stained glass. He preferred the use of stained glass over clear glass painting, the method used by contemporary artists. He also patented a type of iridescent glass he called Favrile, from Old French for “homemade.” Tiffany was inspired in part by medieval glasswork, which didn’t use paint to color the glass. He was also influenced by William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts movement in England, and followed the Art Nouveau style by using natural, yet highly stylized, elements in his designs.
Charles Lewis Tiffany supported his son’s artistic career, and Tiffany Studios products were frequently offered at the Tiffany and Company store in Manhattan. After his father’s death in 1902, Louis Comfort Tiffany became artistic director of the store, which is still a famous jewelry manufacturer today and has outlets around the world. Tiffany Studios closed in 1928 and Tiffany himself died soon after on January 17, 1933, leaving a legacy of breathtaking glass work that continues to have an influence on the world of fine and decorative arts.
The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Orlando, Florida currently houses the largest collection of Tiffany’s artwork. Laurelton Hall, a home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, designed and inhabited by Louis Comfort Tiffany since 1905, was donated to a foundation for art students, but was sadly destroyed in a 1957 fire. The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City opened an exhibit on Laurelton Hall in 2006.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
