Louis Comfort Tiffany

August 14, 2011 12:00 AM

Louis Comfort Tiffany: The Mother-lode.

Tiffany Studios Research Center features an LC Tiffany chronology; links to videos about his life and work, links to biographies, bibliographies and articles on Tiffany's relationships with Siegfried Bing, John LaFarge, Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls; more links to sites showcasing Tiffany, Colman, Wheeler and de Forest interiors; still more links to other articles, sites and museums featuring Tiffany's paintings, stained glass, art glass, mosaics, glass tiles, lamps, metalwork, enamelware, pottery, jewellery, and gravestones; and much more.

Previously, The Willard Memorial Chapel.

posted by Ahab (9 comments total)

The backstory - I've been writing and composing a Tiffany megapost for the blue for about six months now. Rather late in the day, I came across Doros' site, and after grappling with the implications, realized I could do no better. The site is primarily a collection of links to other amazing sites, but is nonetheless incredible in itself. It is carefully curated; links appear to have been chosen for unique or high quality content; and the choice of linked material displays a profound depth of knowledge about Tiffany and his work. Enjoy.
posted by Ahab at 12:01 AM on August 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yes. Am enjoying - Tiffany porn. Mmmmm. Thank you.
posted by Lynsey at 12:36 AM on August 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

I was disappointed at some of the dead links. I was especially irritated at the links to the Cincinnatti Art Museum, which forced me to agree to a Terms of Use page before I could even view their links that ended in an error message instead of a displayed image. Let me tell you a little CAM story (and sorry in advance for the thread diversion).

A few years back, I wanted to use a Grant Wood painting, Daughters of the Revolution, as an illustration in an online article. The publisher, in London, wanted all the rights secured and paid for. The image is scheduled to enter the public domain in 2012, 70 years after the death of the artist. The Cincinnati Art Museum owns the painting, but the heirs of the Wood estate own publishing and reproduction rights. We contacted the UK administer of rights, IIRC we paid like 30 Pounds for the rights to publish it online. That payment went to the estate.

So then I contacted the Cincinnati Art Museum to get a high quality reproduction of the painting, just something with good color accuracy and about 500 pixels wide. They wanted a minimum of $750! I told them we'd already paid for the reproduction rights. I didn't object to a reasonable fee for the time and effort it took to take a photo, but they obviously thought they were the rights administrators. Their fee was based on the usual rights assignments, e.g. size of the reproduction, verified circulation of the publication, duration of the rights, etc.

I contacted the real rights administrators. They admitted they knew about this problem with the Cincinnati museum. I said their royalties were being ripped off and the museum was devaluing their property by forcing people to license it at excessive expense, making it unaffordable to reproduce. I suggested it was within their legal rights to sue the museum to recover the diverted royalties. They agreed, but said this would not be "fighting the good fight," there was nothing much to be gained by suing museums.

So for my article, I just googled for an image on the web. The best one I could find was a crappy low rez scan someone made from a book, with bad moire and poor color. So that's what we ran.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:02 AM on August 14, 2011

I'm going to really enjoy exploring the site. I saw a Tiffany exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art a few years ago that was absolutely fantastic. I've intended to read up on him since then and never quite made the time.
posted by immlass at 5:07 PM on August 14, 2011

Wow. Thanks.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:25 PM on August 14, 2011

Thank you very much, I look forward to the wasted hours I will spend looking at all this beauty.
posted by TooFewShoes at 2:50 AM on August 15, 2011

Having just toured the Morris in Florida, with its amazingly comprehensive Tiffany collection, I was all set to dig into this.

Broken links. Bummer.
posted by kinnakeet at 9:05 AM on August 15, 2011

Bugger - the whole site's down. I hope I didn't kill it. Google cache of the front page. The chronology page. The info and videos page. The paintings mosaics and lamps page. And the windows page. Horrible google bot/cache formatting and no images on the cached pages, but the outgoing links are working. Sadly, the objects page doesn't seem to have been cached.

The Morse Museum does have an online presence, but it's a bit short on images of what they hold. For some great photos of objects I'd recommend browsing the CMOG's collection in image list format, and also having a look at the stuff for sale at Lillian Nassau.
posted by Ahab at 11:08 AM on August 15, 2011

My favorite Tiffany, here in Cleveland. And yes, the window is gorgeous, but the tilework, also by Tiffany's studio, can't really be expressed in a photo, you just have to be there. Such subtle beauty!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 3:15 PM on August 15, 2011