ML - Michigan Avenue

2013 - Issue 5 - September

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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ART FULL Art of Glass Tiffany lamps on display at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum. W ith their arresting shapes and rich play of color, the designs of Louis Comfort Tiffany express a distinctive combination of artistry and craftsmanship and remain among the most compelling in the history of the decorative arts. Hallmarks of the self-assured, newly industrialized America that emerged after the Civil War, these objects adorned homes both grand and modest, typifying a sensibility that both the elite and the aspiring middle class could embrace. With "Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection," the Richard H. Driehaus Museum celebrates that singular style in a sumptuous setting. The son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany & Company, Louis Comfort Tiffany possessed an artist's eye, an inventor's curiosity, and the savvy of a determined businessman. He began as a painter, but soon 78 shifted his attention to interior design, launching his first venture in 1878. Within a few years, glass was central to his creative and commercial efforts. Working with English glassworker Arthur Nash, he developed new techniques for realizing greater effects of color and texture. And as the enterprise grew, Tiffany expanded the range of his activities to include not only stained glass windows and lamps, but blown-glass vases, mosaics, enamelware, metalwork, and jewelry. And Chicagoans were not immune to his infectious vision and the talents of his team. Tiffany, who had opened an office in Chicago in the 1880s, impressed countless individuals with the elaborate Byzantine-style mosaic chapel he designed for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Before long, his clients included the Art Institute (this initial commission, a gallery, was lost continued on page 80 PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN FAIER THE RICHARD H. DRIEHAUS MUSEUM CASTS NEW LIGHT ON THE WORK OF LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY. BY THOMAS CONNORS MICHIGANAVEMAG.COM 078-080_MA_SC_ArtFull_Sept13.indd 78 8/7/13 7:42 PM

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