Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of the famous owner of the New York jewelry company Charles Tiffany (see his Chrysanthemum-pattern silver service in the main gallery of this building), is considered to have been the foremost American designer of decorative art objects at the turn of the century. Although he started as a painter, Tiffany became attracted to the art of stained glass making and created his first art window in 1876. In 1879, he founded Louis C. Tiffany and Associated Artists in New York. By 1883 Tiffany had developed his passion for glassmaking and established a firm called the Tiffany Glass Company which made stained glass windows and mosaics, tiles, and glass plaque pieces for architectural detailing. To reflect his growing business, Tiffany changed the name of his company, in 1892, to the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company. By the 1900s, the company had reached its peak and added to their line metalwork, enameling, brass, and pottery. Marking a more commercial orientation, the name of the company was once again changed to Tiffany Studios in 1902. To keep up with the high demand for Tiffany products and to stay economically viable, Tiffany Studios began to develop many pieces using the production-line method, but because designers were still free to choose the colors of the glass they used, each piece did look original.
Tiffany was greatly influenced by the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts Movement and the works of the founder of the movement, William Morris, whom he visited while in England in 1867. Tiffany believed in producing high quality, hand made goods in large numbers. In this way, he succeeded in fulfilling the Arts and Crafts Movement's philosophy of bringing art to the masses. However, Tiffany produced items that ranged from the very affordable to those made exclusively for the upper class. His interest in luxury goods diverged from the Socialist leanings of the English proponents of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Tiffany's designs also reflected the spirit of Art Nouveau, an international style of decoration and architecture which developed in the 1880s and 1890s in opposition to the historicizing Beaux Arts traditions that had dominated art and architecture in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Art Nouveau emphasis on surface decoration and artistic unity linked the movement to Symbolism, but also served as a bridge between the Arts and Craft Movement and early 20th-century modernism.
In 1895, Tiffany added to his glass products of windows and vases by introducing the first leaded-glass lamps for public display. He used many different glass-making techniques which were influenced by works of the French Art Nouveau artist Emile Galle and his own collection of Roman and Middle Eastern glass. Working with bright, vibrant colors, Tiffany kept approximately 200 to 300 tons of glass in his factory with approximately 5000 different colors and types. Since Tiffany believed that women had a better color sense than men, a number of female designers flourished in his studio, particularly in the lamp, window, and enameling departments. Mrs. Curtis Freschel became one of Tiffany's most important lamp designers, creating not only the patterns for drop-cluster lily lamps but also for the Studio's famous wisteria lamps. The golden, glowing 18-light lily lamp was a centerpiece in the Tiffany display at the 1902 Prima Exposizione d'Arte Decorativa Moderna, in Turin, Italy, and Tiffany was awarded the gold medal for this piece. As a sculptural study of two types of lilies -- field lilies for the golden, iridescent blown-glass shades, bending gracefully on arched bronze stems, and water lilies for the richly patinated bronze base -- this lamp stressed the importance of beautiful natural forms as a starting point for Tiffany designs. The lamp was modern in its blown-glass interpretation of natural forms and also in its application of the latest lighting technologies; it was the first Tiffany lamp that allowed bulbs to be hung vertically, rather than extended horizontally or pointed up, offering new ways in which light might be cast.
