Louis Comfort Tiffany

 Pisces-aquarius Pisces Leo Capricorn

  (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933)

*3 Planets in dreamy visionary Pisces 

with the powerful creativity of Leo

 and the hard working manifestation powers

 of Capricorn*

 

L.C. Tiffany was an American artist and designer who is most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements. One of the most creative and prolific designers of the late 19th-century, Tiffany declared that his life-long goal was “the pursuit of beauty.”
One of America's most acclaimed artists, his career spanned from the 1870s through the 1920s. He embraced virtually every artistic and decorative medium, designing and directing his studios to produce leaded-glass windows, mosaics, lighting, glass, pottery, metalwork, enamels, jewelry, and interiors.

As the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812–1902), founder of Tiffany & Company, the fancy goods store that became the renowned jewelry and silver firm, L.C. Tiffany chose to pursue his own artistic interests in lieu of joining the family business.

Tiffany home - Laurelton studio

 
 Originally trained as a painter, he began studying the chemistry and techniques of glassmaking when he was 24. Beginning in the late 1870s, Tiffany turned his attention to decorative arts and interiors, although he never abandoned painting. 

 

 In 1885, Tiffany established his own firm and while he continued to undertake decorating commissions, his focus was on new methods of glass manufacture. Of all of Tiffany's artistic endeavors, leaded-glass brought him the greatest recognition.

Tiffany’s aesthetic was based on his conviction that nature should be the primary source of design inspiration. Intoxicated by color, he translated into glass the lush palette found in flowers and plants.
This fascination with nature and with extending the capabilities of the medium led to the exploration of another technique—in 1893 Tiffany introduced his first blown-glass vases and bowls, called “Favrile.” The name, he declared, was taken from an old English word for hand made. Favrile glass quickly gained international renown for its surface iridescence and brilliant colors.

 

Tiffany revolutionized the look of stained glass, which had remained essentially unchanged since medieval times when craftsmen utilized flat panes of white and colored glass with details painted with glass paints before firing and leading.

In 1899, Tiffany introduced enamelwork in London, where he exhibited plaques and vases made in the firm's unique style. Layers of translucent enamel in wide-ranging naturalistically shaded hues were applied to a luminous surface that was usually gilt, and finished with an iridescent coating that provided a rainbow luster. 

 

Tiffany was among the first American designers to be acclaimed abroad. Favrile glass, together with stained-glass windows such as the Four Seasons, was shown at world’s fairs and sold in galleries like Siegfried Bing’s L’Art Nouveau, which served as a conduit for the most innovative design at the turn of the century.

 

While glass is the most significant medium in which Tiffany worked, he designed, fabricated, or sold everything that made up an interior, including furniture, textiles, and wall coverings. A desire to create a unified artistic expression culminated in the last house he designed in its entirety—his own. Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, was completed in 1904.

The eighty-four-room, eight-level estate was built at the height of his career and was situated on nearly 600 acres overlooking Cold Spring Harbor in Oyster Bay, New York. A showcase for his unique integration of nature and exoticism, Laurelton Hall was the ultimate expression of Tiffany's aesthetic ideals, envisioned as a total work of art. This was his dream home, where creativity flowed freely and convention was eschewed in place of novelty. Alas it was destroyed by a fire in 1957.

 

 Tiffany’s work reflects the efforts to resolve the conflicting ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement. William Morris, its English protagonist, had demanded: "What business have we with art at all unless all can share it?" Yet most companies could not produce affordable art for the home while retaining high standards and individual expression. Tiffany, however, successfully created an art industry. He triumphed where others had failed because his personal fortune allowed him to sacrifice company profits in the interests of artistic achievement. In addition, he provided an extraordinary range of products, so that consumers at almost every economic level had access to his religion of beauty.


 

Louis Comfort Tiffany was married twice and had a total of 8 children and he died on January 17, 1933.



-morsemuseum.org & metmuseum.org