Summer 2017

Summer 106 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com L ouis C. Tiffany (1848–1933) and his renowned studios are widely celebrated for their virtuosity in glass. Utter the name “Tiffany” and painterly leaded-glass windows and lampshades as well as iridescent vases likely spring to mind. Less well known are Tiffany’s glass mosaics, but a new exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass, organized jointly with the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, highlights the exquisite designs and inventive handling of material that puts these mosaic artworks on par with Tiffany’s better known productions. While some of the earliest evidence for the use of mosaic designs in architecture extends back more than three thousand years, America lacked a native mosaic tradition until Tiffany brought a new vision to the millennia-old art form. Tiffany and his team of designers and artisans introduced glass with gradations of color and tone within a single piece, which significantly An American Taste for Tiffany’s Glass Mosaics by Kelly A. Conway and Lindsy R. Parrott