Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist of the Gilded Age brings together the Nassau County Museum of Art’s unparalleled collection of more than 130 oil and watercolor paintings by one of America’s most celebrated artists. This landmark exhibition marks the first time the Museum will present the full scope of its Tiffany paintings — an extraordinary group made possible through a generous, anonymous gift that represents the largest private collection of Tiffany paintings.
Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist of the Gilded Age is made possible by a generous grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation of New York.
While Tiffany is best known for his stained-glass windows, lamps, and decorative objects, this exhibition highlights a rarely seen dimension of his artistic practice: the paintings that he personally created at the beginning of his career. These works reveal the artist’s hand more directly than those of any other time in his career and illuminate the ideas, colors, and motifs that later shaped the iconic decorative arts produced in his studios. The exhibition will also include Tiffany’s lamps, metalwork, and ceramics, which, paired with the paintings, demonstrate how Tiffany’s approach to light, color, and nature flowed seamlessly across his various works.
Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist of the Gilded Age offers a rare opportunity to explore the full breadth of Tiffany’s artistic vision — to see how his paintings served as a powerful catalyst for the originality, invention, and enduring beauty of his decorative arts.
