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Louis Comfort Tiffany:
Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of Tiffany & Company cofounder Charles L. Tiffany, was originally trained as a painter, studying first with George Inness. Despite his initial career focus, he developed his interests in interior decoration and established his own firm in 1879. The firm had several names during its lifetime: Louis C. Tiffany and Company, Associated Artists; Tiffany Glass Company; Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company; and finally Tiffany Studios, which continued until 1932. Tiffany's offered leaded glass windows, glass vessels, lamps, mosaics, jewelry, furniture, ceramics, and other objects.
The name of Louis Comfort Tiffany is now synonymous with the production of fine-art glass. The term favrile, a trade name for Tiffany's glass, is derived from the Latin term fabrilis meaning handmade. Tiffany oversaw the production of everything created by artists and craftsman at his firm. One particularly distinguished and celebrated artist was Clara Driscoll who designed the Wisteria and Cobweb lamps in addition to many other well known Tiffany lamps.
Tiffany's triumphs at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 established his international reputation, which led to numerous awards at foreign exhibitions and fairs. One of the most celebrated examples of Tiffany's Favrile glass for an international exhibition is the large punch bowl on display in this gallery, for which he received both a grand prize and a gold medal at the Paris World's Fair in 1900. The photograph reproduced here [not shown] shows Louis Comfort Tiffany's booth at the Fair; VMFA's punch bowl can be seen in the bottom right. Art dealer and patron Siegfried Bing recognized the importance of Tiffany's work, and his Parisian art gallery L'Art Nouveau became Tiffany's major distributor in Europe. |