“Dragonfly” reading lamp, ca. 1905, Tiffany Studios, designed attributed to Clara Pierce Wolcott Driscoll (Corning Museum of Glass)
When you hear the words “Tiffany” and “glass,” you might immediately think of stained-glass windows or glowing lamps, but artist Louis C. Tiffany expressed his passion for color and glass most innovatively though his use of mosaic technique. The Corning Museum of Glass’s exhibition Tiffany’s Glass Mosaics is the first to focus exclusively on this aspect of Tiffany’s extraordinary career, reflected in examples from monumental installations to desktop inkwells.
The exhibition features nearly 50 works dating from the 1890s to the 1920s, from intimately scaled, mosaic fancy goods designed for use in the home to large panels and architectural elements composed of thousands of individual pieces of glass. In addition, more than 1,000 pieces of original Tiffany glass from the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass are included.
A tour of Tiffany’s Glass Mosaics with Kelly Conway, the museum’s curator of American glass, is the centerpiece of a glass-lover’s dream visit to Corning. The four-day tour, led by museum education consultant Sheila Pinsker, offers participants a true insider’s experience and many curator-conducted sessions.
Susie Silbert, curator of modern and contemporary glass, provides a tour of the Contemporary Art + Design Wing, and the European Glass Gallery is introduced by the collection’s curator, Kit Maxwell. Marv Bolt, curator of science and technology, leads a visit to the museum’s Innovations Center. Bill Gundenrath and other curatorial staff members welcome the group to the Ancient Glass and Contemporary Glass galleries.
In a first for this tour, a conservator leads participants behind the scenes to get a close-up look at the work of the museum’s Conservation Lab. A guided visit to the Rakow Research Library includes rare books and the exhibition Curiouser and Curiouser: Surprising Finds from the Rakow Library.
A tour of the Corning corporate headquarters, not open to the general public, provides an opportunity to see 11 sculptural installations commissioned by noted glass artists to fill a series of striking atria. Experience the fire and flow of glassmaking as you create your own tumbler and pendant in the Hot Shop, and see glass softening in the furnace during a hot-glass blowing demonstration.
Participants have free time to browse in the museum, its shops, and along Corning’s Market Street.
GENERAL DETAILS
- Cost includes bus transportation, lodging, all activities including hands-on glassmaking at the Corning studio, admissions and fees, gratuities, and several meals (all breakfasts, two lunches, and two dinners). Note: Participants purchase two lunches and two dinners separately.
- Accommodations for three nights are at the Radisson Hotel Corning.
- Tour departs by bus from the Mayflower Hotel, Connecticut Ave. and DeSales St., N.W., with a pickup stop at the I-270 Exit 26 Urbana carpool parking lot at about 7:55 a.m.
- Single-room supplement $225 (factored into the Single Room Member and Single Room Non-Member pricing).
- Singles registering at the double-room rate are paired (on a nonsmoking basis) if possible, but must pay the single-room supplement otherwise.
- Detailed information is mailed to registrants about four weeks prior to departure.
- Registrants may want to consider purchasing trip insurance.
World Art History Certificate elective: Earn 1/2 credit
