In 1905 Elizabeth Owens Morse, the daughter of Charles Hosmer Morse and Martha Owens Morse, married Richard Millard Genius. The gift registry — entitled "The Bride Elect" — survives in the Morse Museum's archive, showing more than 250 gifts. Together these items provide insight into gift giving at the time, especially the kinds of gifts that wealthy consumers deemed worthy of a prominent and artistic Chicago bride. In this exhibition, the Morse presents a representative group of the lovely gifts from the Morse-Genius wedding, including Tiffany art glass, Rookwood pottery, and Gorham silver.
Tiffany Art Glass from the Morse Collection
Ongoing Tiffany Studios was arguably the most accomplished maker of art glass in the world in its day and undoubtedly one of the best of all time. In his art glass, introduced to the public in 1893, Louis Comfort Tiffany used sources that included antiquity, horticulture, rocks, and the flow of lava. Through exploitation of chemistry, mechanics, and logistics in production, he transformed his ideas into objects of astonishing variety, imagination, and beauty. In this newly opened installation (February 2016) from its permanent collection, the Morse presents examples of Tiffany art glass that richly illustrate the artist’s mastery of this medium.
Tiffany Lamps and Lighting from the Morse Collection
Ongoing Although Louis Comfort Tiffany was an international success before his first lamp, it is his signature style of lighting that has extended the breadth and depth of his popularity across America and through time, from the 1890s to this day. The Museum's refreshed Tiffany Lamps and Lighting gallery (October 2015) displays more than 30 objects. Highlights include a magnificent 28-inch hanging (right) Dogwood design shade, after 1900, and a floor lamp, c. 1902, with a leaded-glass Bamboo design shade. The exhibit also has been expanded to include lighting examples by other decorative art firms, giving insight into Tiffany's achievement at a time when widespread adoption of electricity was fueling innovations in the art of lighting.
Focus Exhibition: Tiffany Studios' Daffodil Reading Lamp
Ongoing Few of Tiffany Studios' lamps with leaded-glass shades enjoyed the longevity and popularity of the beautiful Daffodil lamp. Louis Comfort Tiffany loved daffodils — a flower that heralds spring and is rich in symbolic meaning. Not only did he cultivate them and plant them prominently at his Long Island country estate, Laurelton Hall, he created his own versions in glass for windows, lamps, and column capitals. Through objects and explanatory wall panels, the Museum's new focus exhibition presents an in-depth study of its Daffodil reading lamp, c. 1899–1905, from its inspiration and significance to its design and production.
Revival and Reform — Eclecticism in the 19th-Century Environment
Ongoing
Gallery talks, Wednesdays, 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. The Arts window, c. 1894, by J. & R. Lamb Studios is the centerpiece of this exhibition that illustrates the rich diversity of styles that made up the visual environment of the late 19th century in both Europe and America. Lamb Studios, a prominent American glasshouse of the era, exhibited the neoclassical window widely. The installation, organized from objects in the Museum's collection, features more than 20 leaded-glass windows and panels as well as selections of art glass, pottery, and furniture. Besides works by Lamb, windows on view — some avant garde, others reviving styles of the past — include examples by Tiffany Studios, John LaFarge, Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Burne-Jones, Donald MacDonald, and Heaton, Butler & Bayne.
Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Laurelton Hall
Ongoing Curator Tours, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Cell phone audio tour available Louis Comfort Tiffany’s grand country estate on Long Island, built between 1902 and 1905, was arguably the designer's greatest work of art. The Museum’s permanent exhibition of art and architectural elements from Laurelton Hall includes the restored Daffodil Terrace and more than 200 objects from important rooms. The installation, which opened in 2011, features two dozen leaded-glass windows, as well as lamps, art glass, and furnishings in galleries that suggest their context in Tiffany’s original design for the mansion.
Tiffany Chapel
Ongoing The celebrated chapel interior that Louis Comfort Tiffany created for exhibition at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago established his reputation internationally and proved pivotal in his career. The Byzantine-Romanesque masterpiece, formerly installed on the grounds of the artist’s estate on Long Island, opened as an exhibit at the Morse in 1999. Its architectural elements include four leaded-glass windows, 16 glassmosaic encrusted columns, and a 10-foot by eight-foot electrified chandelier. 2016–2017
The Morse Museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday. From November through April, the galleries are open until 8 p.m. on Fridays. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors, $1 for students, free for children under 12, and from November through April, free for all visitors after 4 p.m. on Fridays. For more information about the Morse, please visit www.morsemuseum.org. ###
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