AFA Autumn 2019
Autumn 64 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com O ne of the most creative and versatile American artists of his era, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) is best known for his brilliant innovations in glass. Louis Comfort Tiffany in New London, at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut, is the f irst exhibition to focus on the artist’s Connecticut connections. This permanent display features three newly conserved leaded-glass windows from New London and includes over one hundred fine and decorative arts objects that illustrate the various phases of Tiffany’s career through a regional lens. Although born in New York City, both of Louis’ parents were from Eastern Connecticut. Louis’ father, Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812–1902), grew up in Killingly, Connecticut, where his father, Comfort Tiffany, owned a cotton mill. After working at the mill store as a young man, Charles departed in 1837 with his childhood friend John B. Young to establish Tiffany & Young in New York City, the predecessor of Tiffany & Company. Several years later, Charles married his business partner’s sister, Harriet Olivia Avery Young. Their children, Annie and Louis, followed by younger siblings, Louise and Burnett, grew up spending summers and holidays in Connecticut. By the 1870s, Tiffany & Company had become America’s premier source for luxury goods, specializing in jewelry and silver. The firm served the industrialists who led the Gilded Age, including wealthy New Londoners like Frank Loomis Palmer, whose family owned several textile mills (Fig. 1). While Charles Lewis Tiffany devoted his career to cultivating Tiffany & Company, his son Louis began his career on a different path, starting as a painter. Louis was particularly drawn to the beauty of North Africa, where, as he said, “the preeminence of color in the world was brought forcibly to my attention.” 1 North African Town (Fig. 2), likely depicts the Kairouan Souk in Tunisia, showing the street life and historic Islamic architecture that Tiffany found so appealing. Annie and Louis Comfort Tiffany both found spouses in Norwich, Connecticut: Annie married Alfred Mitchell in 1871, and Louis wed Mary Woodbridge Goddard in 1872. The Mitchells acquired property (now Mitchell College) near the mouth of the Thames River in New London, which became a frequent destination for Louis and his family. Louis painted Connecticut landscapes in the 1870s, and his visits were a time for family, nature, and art. In August 1877, for example, Annie noted in her daybook that she had painted plates with her sister-in-law Mary, and the next day, “went out with Louis sketching & in the afternoon painted.” 2 Photographs show the Mitchell and Tiffany children at play by the shore (Fig. 3). INTERIOR DESIGN In the late 1870s, Tiffany’s interests shifted from painting to interior design and glass. Working with Samuel Colman, BY TANYA POHRT
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