SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS

PAST EXHIBITIONS

VIEW OF OYSTER BAY, c. 1908 Leaded-glass window Home of William C. Skinner, New York Tiffany Studios (69-001)

VIEW OF OYSTER BAY
May 10, 2007 through March 23, 2008
Louis Comfort Tiffany designed this window for the Manhattan home of silk industry scion William C. Skinner whose family home in Holyoke, Massachusetts, was named Wistariahurst. It has long been called View of Oyster Bay, however, because the scene so closely resembles views from the north shore of Long Island, New York, where Tiffany built his grand country estate Laurelton Hall between 1902 and 1905.  In 1978, Hugh and Jeannette McKean gave the loggia from Laurelton Hall to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for installation in the light-filled space of the American Wing’s Charles Engelhard Court.  At the same time, the McKeans made an extended loan of View of Oyster Bay to the Metropolitan. For almost thirty years, both the Laurelton Hall loggia and this masterfully crafted landscape window have been exhibited together and viewed by millions of appreciative visitors. Today, while the Metropolitan undertakes major renovations of the Charles Engelhard Court, we at the Morse are pleased to present View of Oyster Bay to our Winter Park visitors.

Resources

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NUDE, early 20th century Chalk on paper Arthur Bowen Davies, 1862-1928, American (DRAW-069-080)

DICKENS TO BENTON — RARE BOOKS AND WORKS ON PAPER FROM THE MORSE COLLECTION
January 30, 2007 to October 14, 2007:
This exhibition marks the first major showing of the strong and charming group of books, prints, and drawings that Hugh and Jeannette McKean so fondly assembled in their years of collecting. This collection spans almost a hundred years – from an 1844 edition of Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit to a 1941 lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton – and embraces some of the finest European and American artists of this dynamic era of design reform and artistic experimentation. Book highlights include the children’s illustrations of Kate Greenaway, the sensual graphics of Aubrey Beardsley, and the Medieval-inspired designs of William Morris. The list of artists represented among the prints and drawings on exhibit is no less illustrious: Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Édouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arthur Bowen Davies, and Edward Hopper. The beautiful and fragile works in this exhibition represent many different paths that design took from the mid-nineteenth century to the representative art of the 1940s and provide in this single setting another more personal view of the McKeans as collectors.

Resources
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DOOR PANELS FROM THE AUGUST HECKSCHER HOUSE, NEW YORK c. 1905 Leaded glass Tiffany Studios (58-011:A-D)

WINDOWS
AND WONDERS —
TIFFANY FROM THE MORSE VAULTS
October 11, 2005 through August 31, 2007:
Over a period of almost 50 years, Hugh and Jeannette McKean amassed for the Morse Museum a collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany that is unsurpassed in its breadth and depth. For this large installation in celebration of the Museum's 10th anniversary at its Park Avenue location, the Morse presents stunning works from the collection that have not been on view in recent years or which have never been exhibited in these galleries. The objects include a dozen windows, some designed for the country's most elite homes of the day. The installation also showcases 85 other objects from Tiffany Studios, including enamels, lamps, art glass, photography, and pottery, representing not only Tiffany's astonishing versatility in different mediums, but also the McKeans’ comprehensive vision in building their collection for the Morse.

Resources
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FEEDING THE FLAMINGOES, c.1892 Leaded-glass window Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company (U-072)

LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY
AND LAURELTON HALL —
AN ARTIST'S COUNTRY ESTATE
November 21, 2006 through May 20, 2007
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
More than 100 Tiffany windows, architectural ornaments and other objects from the Morse Museum’s collection of works from Tiffany’s Long Island estate will be shown alongside works from a number of private and public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition presents an unparalleled opportunity to examine closely for the first time some 250 outstanding works by one of America’s finest designers at the pinnacle of his career. The exhibition is being organized by the Metropolitan in collaboration with the Morse.

Resources
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VASE, c. 1915 Morning glory design Paper weight glass, reactive Tiffany Studios (2001-059)

DOMESTIC TREASURES —

TIFFANY ART GLASS FOR THE PUBLIC
February 8, 2005 through January 7, 2007:
In 1893, having achieved international recognition for his mastery of leaded glass and mosaic, Louis Comfort Tiffany introduced blown glass to the public.  These exquisite glass objects included not only decorative vases but also functional goblets, decanters, and compotes. Tiffany's blown glass was a sensation, universally praised and widely imitated.  This exhibition, the Museum's most comprehensive exhibition ever of its collection of Tiffany art glass, includes more than 100 examples of vases, tableware, and mosaic tiles.

RESOURCES
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PULPIT, c. 1907 Oak and mosaic South Presbyterian Church Syracuse, New York Tiffany Studios, 1902-1932, New York (2005-046)

This exhibit of a new acquisition features a pulpit designed by Louis C. Tiffany for the South Presbyterian Church in Syracuse, New York. The pulpit, made of solid oak inlaid with blue, green, and pearl-white glass mosaics, has resided in the church since its original purchase from Tiffany Studios in 1907.  As early as 1889, Tiffany created an Ecclesiastical Department within his company to capture as large a share as he could of the boom in church building that began after the Civil War. Tiffany's award-winning chapel interior at the 1893 Chicago world’s fair, installed at the Morse, attracted many future commissions, which of course was a major goal of its exhibition. In the years following, Tiffany had enormous success supplying windows, furnishings, and other liturgical accoutrements to the burgeoning number of churches across America.  The exhibit also includes two small leaded-glass Tiffany windows from the church. The South Presbyterian Church building today is situated in an economically distressed area. In the fall of 2005, its small congregation began attending services at a neighboring church. The historic 1907 Tiffany-decorated church building is being converted to a community center. .

CARNIVAL GLASS FROM THE

CARNIVAL GLASS FROM THE MORSE COLLECTION, 1904-1975

MORSE COLLECTION
October 5, 2004 to March 3, 2006:
From 1908 to about 1918, mass-produced, pressed-glass objects with brilliantly colored iridescent surfaces were wildly popular throughout the world.  First produced in the United States, this rainbow-hewed art class was known by a variety of names, including "Poor Man's Tiffany" in its heyday and Carnival Glass in its declining years.  The exhibit includes more than 35 examples from this
phenomenon of early 20th-century decorative art.

RESOURCES

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VASE, c. 1904 Glazed white clay Tiffany Studios (74-032)

SCULPTING NATURE —
THE FAVRILE POTTERY OF L.C. TIFFANY
February 3, 2004 to January 9, 2005:
Louis Comfort Tiffany’s art pottery counts today as among the rarest of objects created in the designer’s prolific studios. Only an estimated 2,000 pieces were produced in a decade of production, roughly 1904 to 1914, compared to many thousands of glass objects. Through its own collection, the largest known collection of Tiffany art pottery anywhere, the Morse examines Tiffany’s uniquely elegant art pottery in the context of his own work in other mediums and the work of other acclaimed American art potteries. The exhibition, including more than a dozen new acquisitions made with this exhibition in mind, illustrates influences and sources of Tiffany’s pottery as well as its highly developed sculptural nature. Tiffany pottery can be appreciated as splendidly beautiful and distinctive works of art even by those whose love for the decorative arts has not before extended to ceramics.

RESOURCES
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LIBRARY LAMP, c. 1902 Peony design Leaded glass and bronze Tiffany Studios (69-016)

THE ILLUMINATED VISION —
TIFFANY LAMPS AND LIGHTING
February 4, 2003 – January 9, 2005:
Louis Comfort Tiffany was a designer of extraordinary range and versatility, and yet it was his unique vision for lighting that secured his broadest popularity a hundred years ago and is largely responsible for his continued celebrity today. This installation of more than 40 Tiffany lamps represents the museum’s most comprehensive exhibition of Tiffany lamps and lighting from its permanent collection. Taken together, the lamps illustrate Tiffany’s visually dramatic and innovative design achievement in an era when electric light was poised to revolutionize the way we see. They include examples of rare and prize-winning designs; selections made for his own home, Laurelton Hall; and lamps of virtually every sort: table or desktop, standing, hanging and wall-mounted. Original Tiffany Studios lamp catalogues, watercolor designs, archival photographs, prints from glass-plate negatives, flat lamp-shade sample pattern displays, and models showing phases of lamp fabrication further illuminate Tiffany’s vast and fabulously successful enterprise. In his lamps, Tiffany’s fascination with color, nature and light coalesced and through them he gave many Americans an opportunity to join in his own obsessive “pursuit of beauty.”

RESOURCES

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GLASS AND BRONZE LAMP, c. 1900 Émile Gallé (1846-1904) (MISC-029-69)

ART NOUVEAU IN EUROPE AND AMERICA —
FROM THE MORSE COLLECTION
February 5, 2002 to January 12, 2003:
With this exhibition from its permanent collection, the Morse presents objects that represent the exciting range of the bold international decorative arts movement known as Art Nouveau at the turn of the last century. The exhibition includes furniture, architectural ornament, windows, lamps, jewelry, ceramics and art glass from more than 25 artists and designers working across nine countries as well as decorative objects introduced by Liberty and Co. in London, the famed gallery L’Art Nouveau in Paris and Tiffany & Co. in New York. Among those artists represented are such noted figures of the movement as Hector Guimard, Emile Gallé and René Lalique of France, and Louis Comfort Tiffany and Louis Sullivan of the United States.

RESOURCES
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BONNET, 1869-72 Purple ribbed silk trimmed with velvet foliage Moreau Didsbury, Paris (NY-012-010)

THREE WOMEN OF TASTE AND STYLE —

THEIR HATS FROM THE 1870s THROUGH THE 1940s
October 15, 2002 to September 28, 2003:
Twenty-two hats from the Morse collection, spanning some 70
years in tme, tell a story of fashion tasts of bygone eras and
of three women who enjoyed selecting styles that best suited
their own views of themselves.  Martha Owens Morse (1839 - 1903) and Elizabeth Morse Genius (1872 - 1928) were the wife and daughter, respectively, of Chicago industrialist and Winter
Park philanthropist Charles Hosmer Morse for whom the
Museum is named.  Jeannette Genius McKean (1909 - 1989), his granddaughter, founded
the Museum in 1942.  The exhibition features bonnets, cloches, and flowery straws bearing
labels from Chicago, New York, and Paris, all expressing the best of the milliner's art.

RESOURCES
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THE TRAVELING MAGICIAN, c. 1877 Cast plaster John Rogers (1829-1904) (SC-158-90)

SCENES FROM AMERICA'S PAST —
THE SCULPTURE OF JOHN ROGERS
November 28, 2000 to May 13, 2001:
An exhibition of 31 Rogers sculptures from the Morse’s permanent collection. In his charming sculptures of daily life in the mid-19th century, Rogers (1829-1904) made one of the earliest efforts to fashion a distinct image of Americans for Americans. And in acquiring these sculptures in the tens of thousands, Americans demonstrated their broad approval of Rogers’ interpretation of their national personality and character. His scenes of Americana were among those from which later versions of archetypal Americans evolved.

RESOURCES
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SAILBOATS ON THE BEACH, NEW YORK, c. 1888 Photograph Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933)

LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY —
TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHER
February 13, 2001 to June 10, 2001:
This exhibition of 27 photographs from the Morse's
permanent collection is the first known exhibition of
photographs by Louis C. Tiffany (1848-1933).
Tiffany was America's design master at the turn of
the century.  Most people know his lamps, many
know his revolutionary and internationally heralded
leaded-glass windows, and some know of his mosaics
and interior design.  But few have any idea that he was also a photographer whose interest in the medium went beyond the help it could be on a practical level and extended to the regions of photographic art.  His many subjects included people, plants, boats, and landscapes.

RESOURCES
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