SAM exhibit sheds light on Louis Comfort Tiffany, the man behind the glass

Talk about branding. For over a century, the name Tiffany has stood for opulence: the crème de la crème of decorative arts. It carries visions of extravagant jewels and silver, not to mention the waif-like Audrey Hepburn, yearning her way through the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's." For avid collectors and fans of "Antiques Roadshow," turning up the Louis Comfort Tiffany signature on a mushroom-cloud stained-glass lamp or curvy, shimmering vase is an oh-my-God moment.

Louis Comfort Tiffany built his business empire on bling but left a legacy that's much less glamorous. It includes bankruptcy and fire, disgruntled employees and a lot of unanswered questions. How much hand did Tiffany have in the technical innovations of his studios and the production of the work that bears his name? Was he an artist or an inspired entrepreneur?

The answers, it turns out, aren't clear cut. But Tiffany himself summed up his business philosophy well when he proclaimed: "We are going after the money there is in art, but art is there all the same."

With the wealth and connections of his father's jewelry and silver business Tiffany & Co. behind him, Louis Comfort Tiffany built his own empire in the late 19th century under the name Tiffany Glass and Decorating Co. His business branched out to become a decorative arts machine that produced metalwork, stained glass, lamps, furniture, pottery and the trademarked iridescent Favrile glass developed in Tiffany's studios. Asian and Middle Eastern art influenced the opulence of his designs, as did the graceful forms of nature.

By the early 20th century, though, popular styles began to shift. The New York Armory show of 1913 brought European modernism to New York, including Marcel Duchamp's blockbuster painting, "Nude Descending a Staircase." By the 1930s Depression era, with functionality and sleek modernist styles in the forefront, the ornate lines of Tiffany products had fallen from favor. The swirling, multicolored patterns on lamps and vases were considered the stuff of garage sales and elderly aunts.

In 1932, Tiffany Glass declared bankruptcy.

Unexpected objects

To introduce today's audiences to the full range of Tiffany's creativity, a touring exhibition, "Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist for the Ages," debuts Thursday at Seattle Art Museum. Organized by former Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Marilynn Johnson, it represents work from Tiffany's early days as a painter to his furniture, lamps, mosaics, metalwork, stained glass and interior designs.

Some of the objects may come as a surprise, especially for those who think of Tiffany as a designer of fancy lamps. One of the knockouts in the show is an utterly simple, functional table and chair that looks like it could have been built last week. Tiffany designed it in 1882 for his own New York apartment.

Actually, the popular lamps were Tiffany's least favorite endeavor, says SAM's decorative arts curator, Julie Emerson. That's because they were production ware, not unique objects. The main focus of "Louis Comfort Tiffany" — and the part that resonates with the flourishing Northwest studio glass movement led by Dale Chihuly and the Pilchuck School — will be the jewel-like array of Tiffany's trademark Favrile blown glass.

Handsome and rich

In 1848, the year Louis Comfort Tiffany was born, his father got lucky. With political revolutions undermining European society, many aristocrats sold their treasures. The elder Tiffany and his partners were able to buy some fabulous jewelry, reportedly including Marie Antoinette's diamonds, according to the catalog essay written by Johnson.

Growing up, Louis Comfort Tiffany had it all: He was handsome, smart, ambitious and rich. He studied with landscape painters George Inness and Samuel Colman and made the "Grand Tour" of Europe with his sister and aunt. Tiffany studied at the National Academy of Design and later learned glassmaking and interior design. As a painter and draftsman, though, he was no star. Tiffany's landscapes and genre scenes are mostly flat and derivative. But he had a great sense of color and knew opportunity when he saw it. "He realized his limitations as a painter, that's why he turned right away to objets," Emerson said.

As his father's company imported and sold exotic objects from Japan and India, Tiffany took note. There obviously was a market for beauty, and he had an eye for it. With displaced European artisans available to work, Tiffany began to funnel his energy into designing and furnishing opulent interiors.

Tiffany got his first big break as an interior designer in 1879, decorating the Fifth Avenue mansion of pharmaceutical millionaire George Kemp. With ornately carved woodwork, glass tiles, silks and patterns everywhere, Tiffany created the kind of sensuous extravagance that would become his hallmark.

Gradually, Tiffany began expanding his business to produce decorative items for the lavish houses of his clients, including Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens.

The debate continues about how many of those products he actually designed.

How much did he do?

"I know he was involved in 1881," said SAM curator Emerson. "He was very much involved in the glass experiments, using metallic oxides on the surface to give it that silvery iridescence." In fact, Tiffany took out three patents for glass techniques and coined the word Favrile to distinguish work from his studio.

Yet the man who worked as director of Tiffany Furnaces' glass, pottery and enamel divisions, Leslie Nash, didn't think that he or his father Arthur — who developed Favrile glass — got the credit they deserved. In "Behind the Scenes of Tiffany Glassmaking: The Nash Notebooks," Leslie Nash wrote, "After twenty five years of hard work he gave me a potted plant for Christmas. Knowing that two exhibitions gave him a gold medal for work he never had seen or had any thing to do with. I personally designed and made the glass in peacock green luster, my invention, and known only to me. One more potted cherry tree for Christmas."

The Nashes were part of a large group of artisans who worked for Tiffany, including many women. Tiffany said he preferred to hire young female art students in some cases because "they had their color sense more fully developed than any men he could get." Of course, the other advantage was that he could pay them less.

Many remain anonymous. But employment at Tiffany studios gave a few women a share of prestige and money that they wouldn't likely have found elsewhere. They weren't allowed to sign their work, but some did get credit in other ways. A dragonfly lamp designed and made by Clara Driscoll won an award in Paris in 1900. A few years later, The New York Daily News cited Driscoll as one of the highest-paid women in the country, with a salary of $10,000. Such recognition seems to have been the exception rather than the rule, however.

The man who got the glory, Louis Comfort Tiffany, died in 1933 at 84. The extravagant house he built on a 580-acre Long Island parcel for a while was run by Tiffany's foundation as a haven for artists, then ended up sitting empty for years. In 1957, Laurelton Hall and its remaining contents went up in flames.

Yet appreciation for Tiffany blossomed again, as mid-20th-century curators and collectors reassessed his designs and their popular appeal reignited — especially for the part of Tiffany's ouevre he least appreciated: the lamps. Even Tiffany, with his penchant for turning a profit, might have been shocked in 1997 when one of his bronze, mosaic and leaded-glass Lotus lamps brought in a record price at auction: $2.8 million.

Sheila Farr: sfarr@seattletimes.com