The Charles Hosmer - Morse Museum of American Art


On Exhibit

Exhibitions in the Museum’s galleries are changed periodically to enable the public to see more of the permanent collection and to bring a broader understanding of developments in American art. Current exhibitions on view include:

  • Louis Comfort Tiffany’s
    Laurelton Hall

    Ongoing

    The Morse Museum’s new wing provides, for the first time, long-term public access to its collection of art and architectural objects from Louis Comfort Tiffany’s celebrated Long Island home, Laurelton Hall.
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  • Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Life and Art

    Ongoing

    Reflecting on his artistic career at a celebration of his 68th birthday in 1916, Louis Comfort Tiffany characterized his work across various media as a lifelong “quest of beauty.” Few artists have been as energetic or as successful as was Tiffany (1848–1933) in establishing that aesthetic ideal in the American home. Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Life and Art examines through art objects, archival documents, and artifacts Tiffany’s astonishingly diverse work in the decorative arts over the course of his lifetime.
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  • Lifelines—Forms and Themes of Art Nouveau

    Ongoing

    Art Nouveau was an art phenomenon that found enthusiastic support virtually everywhere in Europe and, to a lesser extent, in America from roughly 1895 to 1915. It touched art and architecture, as well as ceramics, furniture, and the other decorative arts. In French, Art Nouveau literally means “new art,” and at the turn of the 20th century, this new art looked different, felt different, and reflected different values and ideas. Today it still feels new. Art Nouveau artists sought to fundamentally change the look of the objects we use in our lives. In their work, line frequently seems driven by its own internal life force—swirling and whipping, swerving and curving, creeping along one minute then racing forward the next. In this exhibition of objects from its collection, the Morse explores the hyper-organic line of Art Nouveau as it communicates the style’s major themes of nature, femininity, and metamorphosis. The works, a number never before exhibited, are certain to both enlighten and delight.
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  • Arts and Crafts from the Morse Collection

    Ongoing

    “Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,” William Morris declared in 1880. Morris (1834–96) was a leader of the Arts and Crafts movement, which originated in Britain in the late nineteenth century and soon spread to America. This gallery highlights Arts and Crafts objects from the Museum's collection.
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  • Vignette: The Art of Fountain Pens

    February 12, 2013 through January 26, 2014

    Before the electronic stylus and tablet, before the laser printer, before fiber- and ceramic-tipped pens and even before the ballpoint, fountain pens were everyone’s writing instrument. Developed in the late 19th century, fountain pens—the kind filled from a bottle of ink—were ingenious, often beautifully designed and handcrafted, and ubiquitous until the 1970s. Today, though still used by a few, they are collected and cherished as little works of art. In this vignette, the Morse presents a gift to the collection of fountain pens dating from 1875 to 1975, giving these beautiful, functional objects much-deserved attention.
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  • Focus Exhibition: Lockwood De Forest’s The Wreck

    Ongoing

    The Wreck, an 1880 oil painting by American artist and decorator Lockwood de Forest (1850–1932), depicts five Bedouins riding their camels across a distant horizon and in the foreground, the skeletal remains of a camel—the wreck of the painting’s title. A recent bequest from the estate of de Forest’s great-granddaughter, this 36-by-48-inch Orientalist picture is on view for the first time after extensive conservation. Metaphorically, the theme of the work is life and death and the basic struggle of human existence. The exhibition includes other de Forest oil studies from the collection and photo-and-essay panels designed to help the viewer develop a full appreciation of the painting’s creation, context, and symbolism.
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  • Watercolors by Otto Heinigke—A Glass Artist’s Palette

    February 14, 2012 through September 29, 2013

    Never before exhibited, this selection from the Museum's collection of more than 30 watercolors by Otto Heinigke (1850–1915) includes scenes ranging from Middle-Atlantic farms and forests to ocean and river shorelines. Heinigke was a first-generation American and a principal in the prominent Brooklyn stained-glass firm Heinigke and Bowen.
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  • Tiffany Chapel

    Ongoing

    The celebrated chapel interior that Louis Comfort Tiffany created for exhibition at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago opened as an exhibition at the Morse in April 1999, becoming available to the public for the first time in more than 100 years. The mosaic and glass masterpiece, a testament to his design genius, established Tiffany’s reputation internationally.
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  • Secrets of Tiffany Glassmaking

    Ongoing

    Updated installation opened September 4, 2012. Through photographs, models, tools, and art objects, this teaching exhibit shows the range of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s glass production, from mosaics and molded-glass jewels to leaded-glass windows and lamps, providing insights into the techniques employed by his artisans.
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  • Paintings from the Morse Collection

    Ongoing

    This recently updated gallery of primarily American paintings features more than 20 works representing a variety of late 19th-century styles, including portraiture, genre scenes, and landscapes.
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  • Art Jewelry, Favrile Metalwork & Precious Glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany

    Ongoing

    This permanent gallery features about three dozen objects, including 11 pieces of jewelry that Tiffany designed for the new art jewelry division he established at Tiffany & Co. after his father died in 1905.
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  • Selected Works of Louis Comfort Tiffany from the Morse Collection

    Ongoing

    The first three galleries at the Morse have been installed with more than a hundred objects representing the remarkable diversity of work by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The installation includes 15 leaded-glass windows, as well as more than a hundred examples of Tiffany art glass, metalwork, lamps, and pottery.
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