“Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light” opens to the public Oct. 6

First responders receive complimentary admission through Dec. 31 

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Oct. 2, 2020) —Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light organized by The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in Queens, New York, opens to the public at Reynolda House Museum of American Art on Oct. 6. The traveling exhibition, originally scheduled to open in March, will be on view until Nov. 29. First responders receive complimentary admission to the museum through Dec. 31. In addition, Bank of America cardholders will be able to sign up in advance for free admission to the museum on Oct. 3-4 and Nov. 7-8 as part of the company’s Museums on Us program. 

The first exhibition of its kind at Reynolda, Tiffany Glass includes five windows, twenty lamps, and several displays showing how Tiffany glass was manufactured, how his lamps were assembled and how collectors today can distinguish between authentic lamps and forgeries. 

To complement the exhibition, Reynolda invites visitors to view Katharine Smith Reynolds’s collection of Tiffany blown-glass vases in the historic house. The floral themes of Tiffany’s iconic works will also carry over to Reynolda Gardens, where visitors will be invited to enjoy the blooms in the four-acre formal garden as well as the greater grounds of the Reynolda estate, which are always open to the public for free. 

Allison Perkins, executive director of Reynolda House explains, “No decorative artist is better fitted to the essence of this country estate, where the Reynolds family was surrounded by flowers and wildlife. Louis Comfort Tiffany’s bewildering inventiveness and versatility made him one of the wonders of the age. Yet his dogged fidelity to nature makes his glass creations both timeless, at the same time familiar and inexhaustibly arresting.”

As a painter, Louis C. Tiffany (1848–1933), son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of luxury retailer Tiffany & Company, was captivated by the interplay of light and color, and this fascination found its most spectacular expression in his glass “paintings.” Using new and innovative techniques and materials, Tiffany Studios created leaded-glass windows and lampshades in vibrant colors and richly varied patterns, textures, and opacities. Tiffany’s chemists developed techniques to produce colored glass in a dazzling variety of colors and styles, rather than simply painting on glass to create naturalistic effects.  

The exhibition features some of the most celebrated of Tiffany’s works. Chosen for their masterful rendering of nature in flowers or landscape scenes, they exemplify the rich and varied glass palette, sensitive color selection, and intricacy of design that was characteristic of Tiffany’s work. This exhibition also highlights some of the key figures at Tiffany Studios who made essential contributions to the artistry of the windows and lamps— chemist Arthur J. Nash and designers Clara Driscoll, Agnes Northrop and Frederick Wilson. 

Tiffany’s technical brilliance in a wide variety of media enabled him to convey his awe of the natural world through a range of objects, from common household items to one-of-a-kind masterpieces. He earned international acclaim for his artistic output, receiving prestigious awards in exhibitions and world’s fairs across Europe and the United States. His work was enthusiastically collected by art museums and private collectors throughout his lifetime, and continues to be highly sought after today. 

Tickets to Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light are on sale now at reynoldahouse.org/tiffany. Reynolda House is operating at reduced capacity and reopens today to members, first responders, and Wake Forest University faculty, staff and students, following a closure of more than six months. Face coverings for all visitors over the age of two are required and timed tickets must be secured in advance. View the museum’s updated visitor policies at reynoldahouse.org/reopening. 

Reynolda House, located at 2250 Reynolda Rd., will be open to visitors Tuesday-Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. 

Admission to Reynolda House is always free for students with ID, children 18 and younger, Wake Forest University faculty and staff, Wake Forest Baptist employees, and active and retired military with ID. In addition, Reynolda House offers admission passes at every branch of the Forsyth County Public Library for free admission. 

About Reynolda
Reynolda, in Winston-Salem, N.C., is a rare gem among the nation’s cultural institutions and historic greenspaces. The 52-year-old museum at the center of Reynolda’s 180 acres, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, presents a renowned art collection in a historic and incomparable setting: the original 1917 interiors of the country manor of R. J. Reynolds. Spanning 250 years, the collection is an uncompromisingly selective one, a chronology of American art, with each artist represented by one work of major significance. Highlights are: Albert Bierstadt, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Romare Bearden, Frederic Edwin Church, Stuart Davis, Martin Johnson Heade, Alex Katz, Lee Krasner, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, John Singer Sargent and Grant Wood. The Reynolda experience includes a free app called Reynolda Revealed; touring exhibitions in the museum’s Mary and Charlie Babcock Wing; formal gardens, conservatory and walking trails of Reynolda Gardens; and more than 25 of the estate’s original buildings repurposed as shops and restaurants in Reynolda Village. Reynolda, located at 2250 Reynolda Road, is part of Wake Forest University. For more information, please visit reynolda.org.

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Media Contact
Kaci Baez
336.758.5524 or kaci@reynolda.org