An artist in his heart and soul, Louis Comfort Tiffany, was an established painter and glassmaker prior to becoming the first design director of his family’s business Tiffany & Co. in 1902, when his father, Charles Lewis Tiffany, passed away. Widely considered to be one of the most prominent American artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, LCT, as he was nicknamed, came to fame through his stained glass lamps and windows known as Tiffany Glass. However, he also created furniture, textiles and jewelry.
Louis Comfort Tiffany Shows Early Artistic Talent
Born in 1848 in New York City, LCT later attended Pennsylvania Military Academy and Eagelswood Military Academy where he began sketching and painting when he was 14 years old. LCT trained as a painter with George Inness and he studied at the National Academy of Design, New York. After his formal schooling he traveled around Europe and North Africa with another artist, R. Swain Gifford. Along the way, LCT developed an interest in glassmaking and when he returned to the U.S., he began working at glassmaking firms in Brooklyn.
Then in 1879, along with artists Candace Wheeler, Samuel Colman and Lockwook DeForest, he founded the design firm Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated American Artists. They designed wallpaper, textiles and furniture, with a mission to show design in a new way that was modern and a move away from the swags and ornate designs of what was popular during the earlier Belle Epoque era that was still around. One of the most important commissions they received was to design the interior of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut. The company closed after four years and in 1885 LCT introduced the Tiffany Glass Company, which became Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company in 1892 and Tiffany Studios in 1900. It is important to note that all of these companies were connected to Tiffany & Co., one because the retailer financed the businesses, but also because LCT’s companies supplied some merchandise to the firm.
Favrile Glass
Nature and ancient history were two important design inspirations for LCT, who collected European, Moorish and Oriental furniture, but glass was his first love. LCT experimented with glassmaking creating his own style, with his own glassworks company, Louis C. Tiffany Glass Company which he opened in 1885 in Corona, Queens. In his glass work, LCT combined superb craftsmanship with his love of color creating intricate stained glass windows and lamps with designs that paid homage to the wonders of nature, some say that he painted with glass. According to the book “Louis Comfort Tiffany at Tiffany & Co.” by John Loring, the firm’s design director from 1979 to 2009, “LCT had always looked at his own extraordinary work in stained glass and glass mosaics…as closely akin to the work of jewelers.”
He also created Favrile glass, riffing on the old English word fabrile which means handmade, an important attribute in a world that was becoming increasingly machinated. Favrile glass was based on Venetian glassmaking techniques creating iridescent glass with free form shapes. It became a signature of LCT’s art, so he patented the process in 1894. In 1900 LCT won the grand prize for his stained glass designs at the Paris International Exhibition.
Louis Comfort Tiffany Becomes Design Director at Tiffany & Co.
Then in 1902, LCT’s father, Charles Lewis Tiffany, passed away and LCT was named as the first design director of Tiffany & Co. It was as design director at Tiffany & Co. that LCT began to create jewelry. When LCT took over, he changed the design aesthetic at Tiffany & Co., introducing a new style that was simple and based on naturalism. Many of his jewelry designs echoed his glasswork. He debuted the Tiffany Artistic Jewelry Department in the Fifth Avenue store, where skilled artisans created jewels using unusual gemstones provided by the retailer’s gemologist George F. Kunz. LCT liked using the Montana sapphires, demantoid garnets and Maine tourmaline that Kunz supplied, along with Mexican fire opal and American pearls, often baroque, to create jewelry that was valued for its design rather than the value of the components. In 1904, LCT showed the first jewelry collection that he designed at the St. Louis World’s Fair.
When making jewelry LCT worked closely with Julia Munson, a highly skilled enamellist who helped bring his designs to life. She had studied art and design at the Artist-Artisan Institute of New York. Munson got married and left in 1914. LCT then hired Margreta (Meta) Overbeck as her successor. Overbeck brought a new sensibility to the designs, she preferred faceted gemstones which were brighter and crisper than the cabochons that were favored by Munson and LCT, but she did continue to use other elements of design that were introduced by Munson, so the jewelry designs have a sense of continuity.
Laurelton Hall: An Artist’s Paradise
One of LCT’s major projects was the construction of his country estate, Laurelton Hall, in Oyster Bay, Long Island. The 84-room, eight story house was situated on 600 acres filled with gardens, fountains and pools. LCT began construction in 1902 and completed the house in 1905. The home was like a mini gallery of work created by LCT. He made special stained glass windows and decorated with other glass, enamel and pottery pieces made in his studios, along with objects he had collected during his world travels.
When he built Laurelton Hall, LCT envisioned it as an arts complex that housed an art school, a museum and studio that would inspire a deeper appreciation of art and beauty. LCT started an artist’s residency program in 1918, with artists spending time at the estate not so much to learn the craft, but to be immersed in beauty and inspired by it.
In 1933, LCT passed away and by 1946 the estate had fallen into bankruptcy. The contents of the house were sold off at auction. Then in 1957, a fire destroyed the house. However, the legacy of appreciating beauty that LCT left for future generations is a lasting gift that both encapsulates his art and encourages creativity in others.
Top: Louis Comfort Tiffany by Joaquín Sorolla, 1911, oil on canvas, Hispanic Society of America, New York, public domain, courtesy WikiCommons.
Authored by Amber Michelle