CINCINNATI, OH.- Opulently colored stained glass windows, iconic iridescent vases, intricate metalwork and floral patterned lamps. Spanning 30 years of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s design career and showcasing a wide range of his objects and ingenuity, Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection presents a superb opportunity to experience the life’s work of one of the most innovative and esteemed American artists of all time. The exhibition features more than 60 masterworks of exceptional beauty and unrivaled quality – including vases, lamps, windows, furniture and ornamental works – that have never been seen in any museum outside of Chicago before now.

Over the last few decades, financier and philanthropist Richard Driehaus has acquired more than 1,500 Tiffany windows, vases, candlesticks, accessories, pieces of furniture and lamps. The Richard H. Driehaus Museum – which opened in 2008 in a splendidly restored Gilded Age mansion – is one of the country’s preeminent collections of American and European decorative arts and holds one of the foremost private collections of Louis Comfort Tiffany material in the U.S.

The Taft Museum of Art premiered Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection, from Feb. 17 through May 27, 2018, before the show embarks on a far-reaching national tour from 2018 through 2021. After the exhibition tour, the objects will return to the Driehaus Museum in Chicago.

The exhibition was organized by the Richard H. Driehaus Museum and is toured by International Art & Artists in Washington, D.C. David A. Hanks, a distinguished decorative arts scholar and curator of the Stewart Program for Modern Design in Montreal, curated the exhibition.

“Tiffany was an artist of such incredible versatility, and this exhibition offers an exceptional platform to observe first-hand the beauty and originality of his achievements,” said Deborah Emont Scott, Louise Taft Semple President and CEO of the Taft Museum of Art.

A highly original craftsman and artist, Tiffany took natural forms as the primary inspiration for his lush and inventive decorative creations. His aesthetic, reinforced and extended by his team of designers, decisively shaped American tastes from the 1880s through the 1920s.

Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was the son of Charles Tiffany, the founder of the famous jewelry and luxury goods retailer Tiffany & Co. Instead of joining the family business, Tiffany trained as a painter in New York and Paris. His first firm was dedicated to full-scale lavish interior design, with such high-profile projects as the State Rooms of the White House. In 1885 he decided to focus on glass, his signature medium, while continuing to create in such media as metalwork, enamels and ceramics. Throughout his prolific career, Tiffany experimented with and combined different media and techniques, drawing on a wide range of traditions, cultures and fashions, which are reflected in this exhibition. He is perhaps best known for his stained-glass windows, which he created by infusing color directly into the glass (as opposed to the European method of painting on glass).

“Beyond exploring Tiffany’s vast legacy as an artist and designer, this exhibition may be experienced as a lively introduction to and celebration of American decorative arts,” said Lynne D. Ambrosini, Deputy Director, Curatorial Affairs, and Chief Curator at the Taft Museum of Art.

The exhibition includes 16 of Tiffany’s bold plant-and animal-form stained glass lamps, 24 iridescent blown-glass vases, seven large leaded-glass windows and numerous decorative objects, including andirons, candlesticks, humidors and inkwells. Among the highlights in the exhibition is the gorgeous illusionistic leaded glass window of a sunset entitled River of Life, a magnificent suite of evocative flower-form vases, masterpiece table lamp with dogwood shade and fern base and shimmering gilt-bronze jewelry box.

Art Nouveau was an international design movement that bridged the 19th and 20th centuries. Its hallmarks were motifs inspired by organic plant and animal forms, a highly original sense of design – often with sinuous curves – and an emphasis on handcrafting with innovative materials. Louis Comfort Tiffany was considered the premier American Art Nouveau designer of the time. His richly colored stained glass windows and bravura decorative objects across media became hugely popular, competing with works by European Art Nouveau artisans particularly after the world expositions in Chicago and Paris in 1893 and 1900, respectively.