Tiffany, Louis Comfort

Tiffany, Louis Comfort (1848–1933). American designer, interior decorator, and architect, his country's most famous exponent of the Art Nouveau style. He was born in New York, the son of a prosperous jeweller, and spent virtually all his career there. His initial training was as a painter, but in the 1870s he turned more to the decorative arts and founded an interior decorating business in 1879. Tiffany became famous above all for his highly distinctive glass vases and lamps, but until about 1900 his firm was better known for stained glass and mosaic work (it did interiors for many socially prominent New Yorkers as well as for clubs). Most of his architectural work has perished, including his own mansion on Long Island, Laurelton Hall (1903–5), which was regarded as his masterpiece; however, the main entrance of this building survived the fire that destroyed the building in 1957 and is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Tiffany was also an art patron and established a foundation that provided study and travel grants for students.