Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany
• American artist and designer
(February 18,1848-January 17,
1933)
• Son of famed jeweler Charles
Louis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany
and Company
• When 18 he traveled through
Europe and was amazed by
the beauty of the stained glass.
His later life
He won an award for his famous stained glass window The
Four Seasons
Rather than paint on glass like the early stained glass in
Europe, Tiffany developed a way to make the colored glass
which was called favrile glass.
The “robber barons” of the
second industrial revolution
such as Vanderbilt, Carnegie
and Rockefeller amassed huge
fortunes that the were eager to
spend on decorating their huge
homes.
Tiffany designed windows for
their homes and jewelry for their
wives.
Autumn Landscapes
He used cheap jars and bottles at the
beginning of his career because they
had mineral impurities that finer glass
lacks helping him to create his favrile
(new) glass.
In 1898 Tiffany teamed with another giant of
the second industrial revolution, Thomas
Edison, to create lamps that were operated
with electricity.
These lamps also gave access
to original art to the “common
man”
Tiffany used the beauty
of nature as inspiration
for his pieces.
In 1957 the mansion created by
Tiffany, Laurelton Hall, was
destroyed by fire. The home
was a masterpiece combining
his passion for color, art and
light. By this time his work had
fallen out of fashion but many
pieces have been salvaged and
are housed in the Morse
Museum of American Art.