Though there are numerous books on the lamps, stained glass windows, and jewelry of Louis Comfort Tiffany, it is rare that the focus is on the art objects of the highly influential Art Nouveau artist and designer. A newly published book The Art Glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany (Vendome Press, $75) addresses that with over 200 pages of photography and scholarly analysis of this important aspect of Tiffany's multi-faceted career. The author, Paul Doros, is a former curator at the Chrysler Museum of Art, where he penned the 1978 exhibition catalog The Tiffany Collection of the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk. Doros was inspired to write the book after a 2010 lecture he gave at the Metropolitan Glass Club, where he shared insights he gleaned during his tenure as glass curator for the Chrysler Muesum of Art and a glass expert at Christie’s 20th-century decorative arts department.
The book explores the many other uses of irridescent Favrile glass that Tiffany is known for in his lamps and windows. Doros examines Tiffany's “Lava” vases, “Cypriote” vases, and glazed-pottery-like “Brown” pieces.
Metropolitan Museum curator of American decorative arts Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen wrote the foreward. And the book's numerous color and black-and-white illustrations are the work of Christie’s staff photographer David Schlegel.
The Art Glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany is available online and in bookstores.
—Vaughn Watson