Louis Comfort Tiffany

Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was educated as a painter, but devoted himself primarily to decorative work and to designing and producing glass after 1880. He was a leading proponent of the American Aesthetic movement, although much of his glass exhibits the Art Nouveau fascination with natural ornament rendered in a free-flowing manner.

Early Life as a Painter

Louis was the son of Charles L. Tiffany (1812-1902) founder of Tiffany and Company, the well-known silver manufacturer and retailer, but L.C. was not interested in the family business and in 1866 decided to become an artist. In 1867, he exhibited for the first time at the National Academy of Design (NAD), New York, and left for Paris the following year, where he studied with Léon Belly (1827-1877), a painter of landscapes and Islamic genre scenes.

In the spring of 1869, Tiffany accompanied the American landscape painter Samuel Colman (1832-1920) on a trip to North Africa, where he made outdoor watercolor sketches under Colman's influence. During this period he came into contact with ancient glass and grew to appreciate the remarkable colors and textures inherent in the material. The excavated glass often had a delicate sheen imparted by metallic oxides in the soils in which they were buried for long ages. He amassed a sizeable collection that he consulted frequently during his later years of designing glass.

On his return to New York, Tiffany joined the American Watercolor Society, and in 1871 was elected an associate of the NAD. He returned to Europe in 1874 to spend the summer in Brittany. Throughout the 1870s he produced paintings based on his travels in Europe and Africa, exhibiting them at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and the 1878 Paris Exposition Universelle. In 1880 he became an academician at the NAD.

Tiffany's Years as a Decorator

Edward C. Moore, chief designer for Tiffany & Company, convinced LCT that he should become an interior decorator, an occupation that was just emerging at the time. In 1879, Tiffany joined with his friends Colman, Candace Wheeler (1827-1923), and Lockwood de Forest (1850-1932) to form Associated Artists. Their interiors, strongly influenced by James Abbott McNeill Whistler's interior design, incorporated exotic decorative motifs in tiles, embroidered hangings, painted friezes, and colored glass. In 1879-80 Associated Artists decorated the interior of the city's Seventh Regiment Armory. The decorative scheme remains in place to this day. Other clients included Hamilton Fish, Henry de Forest, and John Taylor Johnston. The original Associated Artists dissolved in 1883 as each of the principals decided to pursue his/her own interests (Wheeler kept the name for her company).

Tiffany continued handling decorative projects as Louis C. Tiffany and Company. He spent much of the 1880s and 1890s working in glass. He also organized a studio of talented young artists and worked for architects such as Stanford White and Thomas Hastings rather than for individual clients, although he designed superb interiors for the residence of Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer (New York City) that were completed 1890-91 [1]. The Havemeyers were collectors of Tiffany's Favrile glass.

Tiffany Develops Favrile Glass

In 1892, Tiffany developed a new kind of blown glass he called Favrile (the name is derived from "fabrile," an old English word meaning hand wrought or handmade) as part of his operation of the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company (1895-1902). Bowls and vases were offered to the public the following year. The forms of Tiffany's Favrile glass have been described as organic abstractions having a satiny texture and variegated iridescent colors.

The Art Nouveau glassmakers, like Tiffany, broke away from many centuries of glass-making practice that valued crystal-clear transparency and the brilliant effects achieved by etching and engraving. Tiffany valued the glass-blower's skill in shaping the vessel rather than simply applying decoration. He also worked with glass formulations to achieve dramatic opalescent and iridescent effects. He learned glass-making through trial and error in studios in Manhattan and Brooklyn, most of which burned down. In 1880 he applied for several patents. The one for iridescent glass was perhaps the most important in the ultimate development of Favrile glass. The Tiffany Glass Company was established in 1885. The name "Favrile" was trademarked in 1894 by Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company [2], successor to Tiffany Glass Company.

Tiffany's glass was treated with metallic oxides and exposed to acid fumes. Two or more layers were sandwiched or fused together while molten. The results were often unexpected, but gradually the glass blowers learned to create the effects that Tiffany valued in his glass. These effects were classified and given a variety of descriptive names. Cypriote glass has a finely pitted, nacreous surface in imitation of ancient Greek, Roman and Hebraic glass objects whose surfaces had corroded and decayed during centuries in the ground. Cameo glass was made of two or more layers of differently colored glass that were cut or carved away to reveal the contrasting colors of inside layers. Lustre ware was made by dissolving salts of rare metals in molten glass and keeping them in an oxidized state while the vessel was being made. The object was then subjected to a reducing flame which brought the metallic coating to the surface by chemical reaction. Finally the piece was sprayed with chloride which reacted with the metallic surface causing it to crackle. Lava glass simulated the effects of volcanic forces on glass. A dark colored surface with a rough texture was covered in part by gold lustre. Reactive glass, which responds to temperature changes during making, allows one type of glass to be decorated internally with another. Paperweight vases were made by encasing a thick layer of decorated glass within a smooth outer layer, trapping the decoration in between. Agate and Marbleized glass imitated the striated stones such as chalcedony, jasper, and agate. Several variously colored opaque glasses were put into the same melting pot and heated together. When the glass cooled it was polished or carved to reveal the colors within.

Tiffany Studios

Tiffany Studios (1902-1932), an outgrowth of the Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company, made a wide range of decorative objects after 1900, including enameled boxes, jewelry, tableware, and an assortment of household items, including clocks, desk sets, dishes, and trays. The stained glass lamps, for which the company is most famous, were created as a by-product of the making of stained glass windows designed by Tiffany and installed primarily in churches and lavish homes. Tiffany Studios continued under Tiffany's guidance until 1928, when he retired and put Arthur Nash in charge. However, the company was closed within a few years.

By the time he died in 1933, Tiffany's accomplishments had been overshadowed by the functional Bauhaus aesthetic, and his work languished until the 1950s when renewed interest in his achievements was fostered by exhibitions in Europe and America.

Notes:

[1] For more on this interior scheme and the objects that remain from it, see Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, "The Havemeyer House" in Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Gary Tinterow et al. Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993), pp. 172-198.

[2] For a copy of this document, see Robert Koch, Louis C. Tiffany: Rebel in Glass (New York: Crown Publishers, 1964), p. 118.