Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection
“Art interprets the beauty of ideas and of visible things, making them concrete and lasting.”
– Louis Comfort Tiffany
A celebration of beauty, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection features more than 60 objects, spanning over 30 years of Tiffany’s prolific career. One of America’s most renowned artists, Louis Comfort Tiffany worked in nearly all of the media available to artists and designers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—glass, ceramic, metalwork, jewelry, and painting. Tiffany’s technical brilliance in a wide variety of media enabled him to convey his awe of the natural world through a range of objects, from common household items to one-of-a-kind masterpieces. He earned international acclaim for his artistic output, receiving prestigious awards in exhibitions across Europe and the United States. His work was enthusiastically collected by art museums and private collectors throughout his lifetime, and continues to be highly sought after today. This exhibition revels in the artistry and craftsmanship of the Tiffany artworks from Chicago’s distinguished Richard H. Driehaus Collection, highlighting masterworks never before presented in a comprehensive exhibition.
About Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was born in New York City on February 18, 1848, and began his career as a painter, studying at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He expanded his repertoire through his work as an interior designer, and began working at a glassworks in Brooklyn where he developed some of his signature methods of making glass and experimented with new glass forms and techniques. In 1894 he patented the poetic term “Favrile,” from the Latin word fabrilis, meaning handmade, to describe the iridescent blown art glass he began producing. In late 1897, Tiffany built his own glass furnace in Corona, Queens, New York, which produced Favrile and other unique varieties of glass for use in ecclesiastical and secular stained glass windows, lamps, vases, mosaics, and accessories.
While the magnificence and exceptional quality of Tiffany glass made this medium the most significant of his career, he continued to innovate, expanding his operations into enamels, pottery, and jewelry. Despite the enormous success he experienced in his many interrelated businesses over his long career, Tiffany’s work went out of vogue with the advent of modernism. Tiffany’s work received renewed appreciation in the mid-twentieth century, and continues to be associated with unparalleled quality and beauty to this day. When Tiffany died in 1933, the New York Times obituary counted him “among the best known of American artists.”
Please contact TravelingExhibitions@ArtsandArtists.org for more information.
Number of Works: 60+ decorative objects, including lamps, vases, and stained glass windows with accompanying custom casework for all objects
Organized by: The Richard H. Driehaus Museum
Curator: David A. Hanks, Curator of the Stewart Program for Modern Design, Montreal
Approximate size: 2,500-3,500 square feet
Security: High security
Participation Fee: Please inquire
Shipping: IA&A makes all arrangements; exhibitors pay outgoing shipping costs within the contiguous US
Booking Period: 12 weeks; Shorter and longer periods available upon request, pricing may vary
Tour: January 2018 – June 2022
Publication: Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection by David A. Hanks with essay by Richard H. Driehaus and photographs by John Faier
Contact: TravelingExhibitions@ArtsandArtists.org
Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, OH
February 17, 2018 – May 27, 2018
Paine Art Center and Gardens, Oshkosh, WI
June 23, 2018 – September 23, 2018
Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL
October 20, 2018 – January 13, 2019
Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA
February 16, 2019 – May 19, 2019
Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY
June 15, 2019 – September 8, 2019
Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL
October 16, 2019 – January 5, 2020
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA
February 1, 2020 – September 6, 2020
The Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, MI
March 6, 2021 – April 25, 2021
Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, CA
June 6, 2021 – September 12, 2021
Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA
October 2, 2021 – February 13, 2022
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
March 12, 2022 – June 5, 2022
Please contact TravelingExhibitions@ArtsandArtists.org for Exhibition Checklist.
Georgia Museum of Art exhibition to showcase collection of Tiffany glass
UGA Today, by Keyonna Brannam, January 23, 2020
‘Painting with glass’: Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibit opens in Jacksonville
Florida-Times Union, by Charlie Patton, October 20, 2019
Cummer Museum Launches New Tiffany Exhibit, Announces Free Fridays
WJCT News, by Heather Schatz and Bill Bortzfield, October 15, 2019
We are fortunate to have MWPAI and its exhibitions
Rome Sentinel, June 10, 2019
Tiffany Glass to be Featured at MWPAI Museum of Art
Hudson Valley 360, June 7, 2019
Tiffany Treasures
Iowa Public Radio, by Jacqueline Halbloom, March 20, 2019
Figge offers free ballet, Valentine's tour Thurs.
QC Online, February 13, 2019
Louis Comfort Tiffany Travels To Taft Museum
Antiques and the Arts, April 10, 2018
Taft Museum gets first stop on national tour of Tiffany treasures
Cincinnati Business Courier, February 14, 2018