Reynolda’s Spring 2020 exhibition, Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light, was organized by the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in New York City. The first exhibition of its kind at Reynolda, it includes five windows, twenty-four lamps, and several displays showing how Tiffany glass was manufactured, how his lamps were assembled, and how collectors today can distinguish between authentic lamps and forgeries. As a painter, Louis C. Tiffany was captivated by the interplay of light and color, and this fascination found its most pectacular expression in his glass “paintings.” Using new and innovative techniques and materials, Tiffany Studios created leaded-glass windows and lampshades in vibrant colors and richly varied patterns, textures, and opacities.
The exhibition features some of the most celebrated of Tiffany’s works. Chosen for their masterful rendering of nature in flowers or landscape scenes, they exemplify the rich and varied glass palette, sensitive color selection, and intricacy of design that was characteristic of Tiffany’s work. This exhibition also highlights some of the key figures at Tiffany Studios who made essential contributions to the artistry of the windows and lamps— chemist Arthur J. Nash and designers Agnes Northrop and Clara Driscoll. To complement the exhibition, Reynolda will create a special installation of Katharine Smith Reynolds’s collection of Tiffany glass vases.
Image: Detail. Tiffany Studios, New York, Clara Driscoll (1861-1944), designer. Wisteria Library Lamp, ca. 1901. Leaded glass, bronze. The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, Queens, NY.