Published: October 31, 2006 02:26 pm            

Tiffany: More than stained glass windows

Pittsburgh, Pa. — Louis Comfort Tiffany, the renowned master decorative arts designer, was also an accomplished painter.

Visitors will discover that quickly upon entering the exhibition of his works that opened Oct. 15 at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

In point of fact, painting was Tiffany’s first foray into the art world, and several of his paintings in oil and watercolor are included in the exhibit of more than 130 works. It is the first comprehensive showing of his decorative art pieces in the United States in nearly 20 years.

Organized by Marilynn A. Johnson, former curator of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibit showcases Tiffany’s range of interests that included mosaics, ceramics, jewelry, photography, metalwork, even furniture, in addition to his stained glass windows, Favrile glass and ornate lamps.

“The exhibit is arranged by influences on Tiffany’s work that include nature, motifs from the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Japan and designs inspired by important archeological discoveries unearthed in his era,” said Jason Busch, the Carnegie Museum of Art’s curator of decorative arts.

Of course, the exhibit includes magnificent examples of his lamps and stained glass windows such as “Lamp With Dragonfly Motif,” whose design is attributed to Clara Driscoll, one of Tiffany’s female students. Her $10,000-per-annum salary was among the highest paid to women at that time.

In his studio, Tiffany employed numerous female artisans who selected colors for his glass works because he thought they had “a more innately superior sense of color than did men.”

A beautiful example of Tiffany’s large leaded glass installations, “Window Panel with Swimming Fish,” depicts three large koi (colorful Japanese carp) swimming through a rippling stream of blue and green water. The panel was designed for the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Conn.

Pittsburgh is the last stop on the exhibit’s four-city tour which included Seattle, Toledo and Dallas. However, the Carnegie is the only venue to host a bi-fold mahogany door with bronze powder paint designs, also on loan from the Mark Twain House. The exhibit marks the first time since 1958 the door has been on view outside its home in Hartford.

Cited as the first American artist to achieve iconic status through the creation of decorative arts objects, Tiffany began to create his own jewelry designs in earnest in 1901, the year his famous jeweler retailer father passed on. Several examples of the wearable artifacts that emerged from his studio in the exhibit collection include “Necklace with Grapes and Grape Leaves,” a bib necklace latticed together by gold links, fashioned to resemble espaliered grapevines, from which golden leaves and green nephrite grape clusters are appended.

One of his works, a “Mosaic Panel with Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos,” is ablaze with iridescent color of a golden sky that serves as the backdrop for a pair of white birds native to the South Pacific who perch amid a floral display.

Also in the collection, two examples of Tiffany’s furniture — an ornate carved armchair made for the music room of the H. O. Havemeyer House in New York and an austere Trestle-Base Table that once sat in Tiffany’s much-loved country residence called “The Briars” demonstrate his ability to design in very disparate styles.

To complement the main exhibit, nine bronze desk sets designed by Tiffany in a variety of patterns (heraldic, Chinese, Spanish and more) are on display in the Museum’s nearby Treasure Room Gallery.



Dave Zuchowski writes for the New Castle (Pa.) News.

        

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