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Louis C. Tiffany and the Art of Devotion

Edited by Elizabeth De Rosa, Lindsy R. Parrott, Patricia C. Pongracz, Diane C. Wright. Contributions by Elka Deitsch, Alice C. Frelinghuysen, Lindsy Parrott, Patricia Pongracz, Elizabeth De Rosa, Jennifer P.Thalheimer, Peter W. Williams, Diane C. Wright

Published by GILES in association with the Museum of Biblical Art, New York

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About the Book

Louis Comfort Tiffany and the Art of Devotion focuses on the vast assortment of church decorations and memorials produced by Louis C. Tiffany (1848-1933) and the Tiffany Studios. For over half a century, Tiffany oversaw the production and marketing of a multitude of decorative elements for many of America’s leading congregations— Protestant, Catholic and Jewish. He employed designers, draftsmen, and craftspeople to produce a complete interior design including mosaics, windows, floors, lighting, furniture, altarpieces, pulpits, candlesticks, headstones and mausolea, vestments and jewellery. Works in all media could be bought “off the shelf” or as special commissions designed for a particular patron. This beautifully illustrated volume includes preliminary designs, cartoons, watercolour sketches and archival photographs of these windows, interiors and pieces of ecclesiastic furniture, many never published before.

The authors consider the reasons for the success of the Tiffany Studios’ Ecclesiastical Department: Tiffany’s skilful advertising, the quality and variety of the Studios’ work and the boom in church building in the U.S. in the late 19th century. Tiffany promoted his designs to the public and potential clients through a variety of marketing techniques — showroom displays, sales catalogues, press releases, luxurious illustrated pamphlets, and installations made for national and international expositions. He was so successful that high-quality church and memorial designs became synonymous with the Tiffany Studios brand.

About the Author(s)

Elka Deitsch is the senior curator, Herbert & Eileen Bernard Museum of Judaica. Elizabeth De Rosa teaches at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Program with an interest in Art Nouveau and American and European art glass. She curated the exhibition Tiffany: Behind the Glass (2001) at The Neustadt Collection, New York, and is the co-curator of the forthcoming exhibition, Louis C. Tiffany, The Art of Devotion at MOBIA. Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen is Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Winner of the Robert C. Smith Award of the Decorative Arts Society, she is the co-author of Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall: An Artist’s Country Estate (2006) and The Lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany (2005). Lindsy Parrott currently serves as the director/curator at The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in New York. She is the co-author with Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen of Louis Comfort Tiffany: Nature by Design (2009). Patricia C. Pongracz is the director of curatorial affairs at MOBIA, and the co-author of Perspectives on Medieval Art: Learning through Looking (2010). Jennifer Perry Thalheimer is curator and collection manager at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art. She co-curated the exhibition Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall: An Artist’s Country Estate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and coauthored the exhibition catalogue in 2006. Peter W. Williams is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and American Studies, Department of Comparative Religion, Miami University, editor (with Charles H. Lippy) of Encyclopedia of Religion in America (2010) and author of America’s Religions: From the Origins to the Twenty-First Century (2001). Diane C. Wright is a senior fellow in the American Decorative Arts Department at the Yale University Art Gallery. Her research papers on the leaded-glass windows and mosaics of Tiffany Studios and on Frederick Wilson, head of the ecclesiastical department at Tiffany Studios, were published in the Journal of Glass Studies (2009).