Tiffany Lights Up Nassau Museum of Art

You know Tiffany from the sparkle of its jewelry or the magical way light passes through its trademark glass. The name just evokes light.

Now you can see several influences at work in a new exhibit at the in Roslyn:

Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), the son of Tiffany and Company founder Charles Louis Tiffany, was an accomplished painter who became a master glassmaker and founded Tiffany Studios. 

“When Louis Comfort Tiffany talks about his art he really does talk about light-infused scenes,” Nassau County Museum of Art Director Dr. Karl Emil Willers said.

The exhibit features 125 paintings from Tiffany, which are from a single Long Island collector that Willers called the result of a lifelong and loving project.

“They approached the museum, inviting me and senior staff to see their collection of works, and of course we were overwhelmed when we saw it,” said Willers, who noted the collector wished to remain anonymous. “It is the largest private collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany.”

The subject should resonate with Long Islanders. After all, Louis Comfort Tiffany made his home in nearby Laurel Hollow. The 60-acre estate included the 84-room Laurelton Hall, which was built in 1905, and after his death, served as refuge for art students until it burned down in a 1957 fire.

Several of the paintings on display at NCMA feature the Laurelton Hall grounds. But the standout works show Tiffany as one of the few American painters who took an interest in North Africa and the Middle East. 

“Its such a range of work from his Orientalist works to American landscape painting to personal works, portraits of family and landscape imagery of his own home near Oyster Bay, Long Island,” Willers said.

The paintings mix well with an assemblage of Tiffany Studio lamps and glass also on display, adding an extra dimension to the exhibit.

“The Paintings of Louis Comfort Tiffany: Works from a Long Island Collection,” opened Saturday and runs through March 18, 2012.

NCMA will offer several public programs in conjunction with the Tiffany exhibit. Included are talks by Franklin Hill Perrell, the museum’s former senior curator; Lindsy Parrott, the director of the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass; a film about Tiffany that will be screened three times each day; and two Brown Bag Lectures followed by exhibition tours.