: While Tiffany windows, Tiffany lamps and Tiffany silver are
widely known, few scholars and collectors have made a study of
Tiffany ceramics within the context of the art pottery movement.
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was blessed with the creativity
of a Renaissance master and considerable commercial success in
many media. Yet, this very success in glass, silver and small
objets d'art has overshadowed a unique body of around 2,000
pieces of artistic pottery made during the decade 1904-1914.
"Sculpting Nature: The Favrile Pottery of L.C. Tiffany," the
current exhibition at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American
Art through January 9, 2005, displays approximately 100 ceramic
examples from the institution's permanent collection, including
pieces newly acquired in preparation for this show. The Morse
Museum has also extended through 2004 "The Illuminated Vision:
Tiffany Lamps and Lighting from the Morse Collection," which
presents more than 40 lamps of every type, also drawn from the
museum's holdings.
The museum was founded in 1942 by Jeannette Genius McKean
(1909-1989), who named the institution after her grandfather,
Charles Hosmer Morse, a wealthy Chicago industrialist who retired
to Winter Park. Her husband, Hugh F. McKean (1908-1995), was
director of the museum for 53 years, as well as president of
nearby Rollins College from 1951 to 1969. The couple
enthusiastically partnered in collecting and together acquired
the museum's comprehensive collection of Tiffany objects as well
as American art pottery and paintings from the late Nineteenth
and early Twentieth Century.
Many collectors are familiar with Hugh McKean's The "Lost"
Treasures of Louis Comfort Tiffany, first published in 1980
and reprinted in 2002 by Schiffer Publishing as part of its
Classic Reference Book series. As a young artist in 1930, McKean
had studied at Tiffany's Laurelton Hall estate in Oyster Bay,
N.Y., and his book includes a wealth of material on architectural
and interior design projects and a rare chapter on the pottery
illustrated with examples from the Morse Museum collection.
