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Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) is well known for his work in stained glass. He was an American artist and is associated with the Aesthetic and Art Nouveau movements. He used stained glass in many different applications including windows, lamps, jewelry, metalwork and enamels. He was associated with the Associated Artists, a prestigious society of artists which included Candace Wheeler, Samuel Colman and Lockwood de Forest.

His father, Charles Lewis Tiffany was the founder of the Tiffany company He began his artistic career as a painter but became interested in glassmaking in about 1875 and worked in glass making factories until about 1878. He founded the first Tiffany Glass Company in 1885 which was renamed as the Tiffany Studios in 1902.

At first he used bottles and jelly jars which were cheap but had impurities lacking in finer glass. Failing to persuade the fine glass makers to leave in the impurities he began to make his own glass. He used opalescent glass in different textures and colors to make his own unique stained glass designs. Previously stained glass was made by painting clear glass with enamels or glass paints.
Tiffany built a new factory in 1893, the Stourbridge Glass Company, to produce his stained glass. He first produced blown glass in 1893 and exhibited his lamps at the World’s Fair in Chicago the same year.
Tiffany WindowHe called his glass, pottery or enamel products Favrile, from a French word for handmade, and trademarked this term in 1894. The company produced lamps from 1895 as well as stained glass and a range of other interior decoration. At its peak the company employed over 300 artisans.

The most comprehensive collection of Tiffany’s work is now housed at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Florida. The collection includes Tiffany lamps, paintings, leaded glass windows, jewelry, pottery, art glass and more. It also exhibits the interior of the chapel Tiffany designed for World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 held in Chicago. There are also glass panels from his home, Laurelton Hall.

His family company, The Tiffany Company, sold products produced by his studio and he became the Artistic Director of the company after his father’s death in 1902. Tiffany Studio continued in business until 1932.

Louis Tiffany died in January 1933

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