Friday
December 02, 2005
SGN.org
Volume 33
Issue 48
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Wednesday, Jan 07, 2009
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Bits & Bytes |
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| L. C. Tiffany: Artist For The Ages lures huge crowds to Art Museum, Orchid Pavilion reopens SAAM | |
| by Milton Hamlin
- SGN A&E Writer
Between putting away the last remnants of Thanksgiving decorations and starting the Christmas/Hanukkah season, Seattle arts and entertainment fans have a wide choice of special and seasonal events. The Seattle Art Museum is in the final four-week countdown for its current blockbuster show, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist For The Ages, continuing through Jan. 4 at the downtown SAM. It's clearly "the" show of the season. The exhibit-which opened here in mid-October and travels to three other major regional museums in the coming years-has lured thousands of visitors. The attendance is a healthy mix of the usual SAM patrons and fans of glass and decorative arts. Seattle's reputation as the center of modern American glass making is drawing first-time SAM visitors and a huge influx of student and out-of-town visitors. The Tiffany exhibit is the last show at the downtown SAM before it closes Jan. 5 for expansion into its new addition to the north of the existing building. It reopens in the spring of 2007. The Seattle Asian Art Museum, the group's original home in Volunteer Park, reopens in early January with its first major exhibit, The Orchid Pavilion Gathering: Chinese Paintings from the University of Michigan Museum of Art, starting Jan. 14. HOLIDAY CHOICES OFFER VARIETY In addition to the seasonal holiday fare-Nutcracker at PNB, A Christmas Carol at ACT, Handel's Messiah on every musical group's calendar, The Seattle Men's/Women's Chorus holiday concerts, No, No. Noel at Crepe de Paris, Black Nativity at Intiman, Voices of Christmas at Arts West, Forbidden Xmas at Empty Space-Seattle entertainment fans have a number of other choices. Big continues at Civic Light Opera, Mamma Mia opens next week for a two-week stay at the Paramount, The Sound Of Music is delighting family crowds at the 5th Avenue Music Theatre, and cabarets continue at Thumper's and Crepe de Paris where the thoroughly entertaining There's Always One More Song To Sing continues weekend nights through New Year's Eve. It's a great season for Emerald City entertainment fans-and, as usual, for Bits&Bytes. The 5th Avenue, busy with its just-opened The Sound Of Music, is readying the late-January world premiere of the Broadway-bound music adaptation of The Wedding Singer. What a town& TIFFANY EXHIBIT DRAWS NEW FANS More than 120 major works of art by Louis Comfort Tiffany are on view at the Seattle Art Museum in its smash exhibit, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist For The Ages, which continues through Jan. 4 at the downtown museum. Objects on display include some of Tiffany's iconographic stained glass windows and his incredible art glass lamps. These world famous images are supplemented by rarely exhibited paintings the artist did early in his career, glorious jewelry in the Art Nouveau style, glass and pottery vases in Tiffany's unique nature-influenced designs, mosaics, furniture, book bindings and other works from Tiffany and his fabled Tiffany Studios. Louis Comfort Tiffany, born in 1848, was the oldest son of Charles Tiffany, the founder of Tiffany & Co. which is still a world famous design name in the areas of jewelry and the decorative arts. L. C. T., as he often signed his works, decided not to follow his father in the family firm and struck out on his own, first as a not-very-good painter but then as a pioneer in the then-new field of decorative arts and domestic design. He refused to work in precious metals-gold, sterling silver-but explored "common" elements-glass, clay, brass, bronze. LOOKED FOR 'MONEY IN ART' Tiffany, an incredibly successful artist and business man, famously noted that he was going after financial success-"there is money in art-but it is still art." Like many of Seattle and the Northwest's most influential glass artists of the modern era, Tiffany saw a chance to become successful in a new medium that was not then a market magnet. Early decorative arts commissions-for Mark Twain, The White House, Cornelius Vanderbilt and others-earned him an international reputation and early success. By 1880 he had become the youngest member of the National Academy Of Design. His move into experiments in glass-making techniques in the 1880s brought him international acclaim. He trademarked the name "Favrile Glass" (archaic French for "hand made") in 1894. His vases and decorative arts works from that era were immediately acquired by major museums throughout the world. Tiffany, an astute businessman, often presented the most famous, most influential institutions with major objects created for the then-popular World Exhibitions and World Fairs. The resulting publicity and popularity soon made Tiffany and his works household names. (A number of Seattle mansions from the turn-of-the-century had Tiffany windows, Tiffany chandeliers, Tiffany wallpapers. One major, over-sized Tiffany glass window is owned by a prestigious Seattle museum but has not been displayed for decades.) The "Tiffany Style" dominated American design for decades. His sensuous, swirling vases and other glass wares were "the" wedding gift of the era (and the family business-Tiffany & Co.-was the essential spot to buy them), his stained-glass windows were mandatory additions to any church in a major city, his distinctive art glass table lamps were the most prestigious decorative item any homeowner could covet. At its heyday, Tiffany Studios employed more than 300 designers, artists, glass blowers, gaffers and other artisans. While his distinctive Tiffany style reigned for nearly four decades, it quickly came to and end on the eve of World War I. The famous Armory Show of 1913-which introduced the sleek lines of Art Deco which soon became the new design rage-and the U.S. entry into World War I created the impression that Tiffany was shallow and outdated. SADLY, TIFFANY FELL OUT OF FAVOR By the 1920s, his works were clearly out of favor and sales had plummeted. Early in the Great Depression, his remaining stock was sold off at auction-often by the box full. One major antique dealer of the period remembered watching the now-famous lamps being broken up on the sidewalk after the sale and the glass discarded as scrap metal dealers salvaged the lead framework of the shades. These very same handmade, but mass produced, lamps now sell at auction for millions of dollars. Tiffany retired to his lavish mansion, Laurelton Hall, were he lived out his life as a recluse. He died, virtually penniless and nearly forgotten, in 1933. His works resurfaced in the 1960s, partly because of the psychedelic posters and designs of the early "Hippie Era." Vases, wine glasses, ink wells, salt dishes that had sold for $2 or $3 as curiosities skyrocketed in value. Table lamps that had languished for sale at $25 soon sold for thousands of dollars. Truman Capote famously celebrated the sale of In Cold Blood to Hollywood by buying one of Tiffany's celebrated Wisteria Library Lamps, one of the designer's most famous-and influential-designs for $10,000, a then record-breaking price. The Wisteria Lamp has recently sold for well over a million dollars. (Bits&Bytes had the chance to buy a Tiffany glass-and-bronze ink well in New York in 1963 for $10 but passed it up because "it was the ugliest thing I had ever seen.") ART GLASS LAMPS & A FIRE SCREEN The Seattle Art Museum features the Wisteria Lamp and several other major table and floor lamps. The famous Favrile Glass vases and other objects are popular items in the exhibit. The stained-glass windows and incredibly detailed mosaics are another highlight. The jewelry, the art pottery, furniture-even a Tiffany designed fire screen-are other "don't miss" objects. Some of the rare Tiffany art pottery-especially a 1905 Vase With Fern Fronds-has been replicated in sterling silver by Tiffany & Co. where Louis Comfort Tiffany remains a major designer. By "reimagining" the designs in sterling, Tiffany & Co. keeps the design alive but solves any confusion between the original L.C.T. objects and modern reintroductions. FREE THURSDAY, FREE SENIOR FRIDAY Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist For The Ages continues through Jan. 4 at the downtown Seattle Art Museum. The exhibit is one of the most popular at SAM in recent years, but the crowds are still quite manageable. Put the exhibit on your "must" list-but don't be surprised at huge crowds the last 10 days in the after-Christmas "do it now" push. Recorded information on all SAM exhibits is offered at 654-3121. Be sure to ask about First Thursdays with free admission for all patrons and First Fridays with complimentary admission for seniors. |
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