February 23, 2007

Rewiring Tiffany lamp design history - now with women

Here's one for the "behind every succesful man there's a woman" files.

Many of the most famous Tiffany lamps were designed by a little-known group of unmarried women living in turn-of-the-century New York known as the "Tiffany Girls."

Their work, and their leader, Clara Driscoll, are the subject of a new exhibit opening today at the New-York Historical Society, which has long been home to an extensive Tiffany collection.

"A New Light on Tiffany" inlcudes more than 50 lamps, windows, mosaics and ceramics but its historic impetus is the recently discovered letters penned by Driscoll, giving an insider account of what it was like to work for Louis Comfort Tiffany. Since the Tiffany Studios went bankrupt in 1932 and most of its records were destroyed, there has been a historic gap until her letters came to light. (The Tiffany & Co. that exists today didn't have anything to do with organizng the exhibit at NYHS>.)

Driscoll was one of the "new urban type" of women making her way in New York and her skills led her to lead the Tiffany's Girls studios, located at Fourth Avenue and 25th Street in Manhattan. There, she designed the famous wisteria, dragonfly and peony lamps.

While the women were paid the same rate as the men, curator Margaret Hofer said during the media preview on Thursday, there was a division of duties (as the men were thought better suited to work on geometric patterns.) There was also a lot of friction between the sexes since the women were originally hired in 1892 during a citywide strike of the male-only Lead Glaziers and Glass Cutters Union. There was also a lot of turnover in the women's studio because "traditions of the day dictated that married women not work."

The audio guide to Driscoll's letters will be available in Acoustiguide, cell phone and online formats; it's read by actress Lois Chiles, who played a Bond Girl, Dr. Holly Goodhead, in "Moonraker."

The exhibition will be on display through May 28 at the New-York Historical Society, located at, 170 Central Park West, map.


Image credits: Wisteria lamp, designed by Clara Driscoll c. 1901, NYHS collection, gift of Dr. Egon Neustadt; and Tiffany Girls on the roof of Tiffany Studios, c. 1904-05. The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, Winter Park, Fla.

February 23, 2007 11:00 AM in History, Museums, Sightsology, Upper West Side

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