Louis Comfort Tiffany | 1848-1933

Glass Artist Associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic Movements

Louis Comfort Tiffany was born on February 18, 1848, in New York City. He was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany and Company. He attended the Pennsylvania Military Academy and Eagleswood Military Academy. Tiffany started his career as a painter. He studied painting under George Inness in Eagleswood, New Jersey, and Samuel Colman in Irvington, New York. He also studied at the National Academy of Design and with Leon-Adolphe-Auguste Belly.

Tiffany became interested in glassmaking around 1875 and worked at several glasshouses in Brooklyn until he joined Candace Wheeler, Samuel Colman, and Lockwood de Forest to form Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated American Artists. The group made designs for wallpaper, furniture, and textiles, but the business lasted only four years. He later opened his own glass factory in Corona, New York, which thrived.

In 1881 Tiffany designed the interior of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, and in 1882 he was hired by President Chester Alan Arthur to redesign the staterooms at the White House. The firm dissolved in 1885 when Tiffiany decided to concentrate on art glass. Tiffany established his first glassmaking firm that same year, which in 1902 became known as the Tiffany Studios. In 1893, Tiffany built a new factory called the Stourbridge Glass Company, later called Tiffany Glass Furnaces, which was located in Corona, Queens, New York. In 1893, his company also introduced the term Favrile in conjunction with his first production of blown glass. He trademarked Favrile (from the old French word for handmade) on November 13, 1894.

Louis Comfort Tiffany passed away on January 17, 1933, in New York City at the age of 84.

Sources: Wikipedia, WikiArt.org