Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light

Exhibition Website

Feb 2 2018 - May 5 2018

Tiffany Studio’s leaded-glass lampshades and windows, designed with colorfully luminous opalescent glass, shine as some of the twentieth century’s most striking, iconic decorative objects.
As a painter, Louis C. Tiffany – son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of luxury retailer Tiffany & Company – was captivated by the interplay of color and light. As his artistic and business interests expanded, Louis Tiffany directed hundreds of Tiffany Studios artists and artisans who created an array of decorative art objects. The use of opalescent glass and innovative techniques, marking a departure from the centuries-old stained glass tradition of painting on the surface of glass, achieved impressionistic effects in Tiffany’s signature leaded-glass work.

Glass – masterfully selected for its color, opacity, and texture – was assembled to create translucent flowers, gossamer dragonfly wings, landscapes, and domes of geometric patterns. The vast and varied glass palette and intricate designs became hallmarks of Tiffany Studios. The exhibition highlights the contributions of Tiffany Studios chemist Arthur J. Nash and leading designers Agnes Northrop, Frederick Wilson, and Clara Driscoll and also includes an educational model illustrating how leaded-glass shades are fabricated along with examples of Tiffany lamp forgeries to explore issues of authenticity and connoisseurship.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

  • Decorative Arts
  • American
  • 20th Century
  • Design
  • Glass
  • Agnes Northrop
  • Frederick Wilson
  • Clara Driscoll
  • and others

Exhibition Venues & Dates