Welcome to Richmond, Mr. Tiffany

When the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts reopened earlier this month, one of the most talked about events on the schedule was the arrival of what’s being called the most important exhibition of work by renowned designer and master of glass, Louis Comfort Tiffany. Ladies and gentlemen, the VMFA proudly presents Tiffany: Color and Light.

May 28, 2010; 6:00 AM • by Valerie Catrow

When the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts reopened earlier this month, one of the most talked about events on the schedule was the arrival of what’s being called the most important exhibition of work by renowned designer and master of glass, Louis Comfort Tiffany. Ladies and gentlemen, the VMFA proudly presents Tiffany: Color and Light.

Produced by The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in collaboration with the VMFA and Le Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, this exhibition features more than 180 works by Tiffany and his artisans, including handblown glass objects, lead-glass windows, lamps, oil paintings, water colors, and mosaics. Only 14 of those pieces already had a home at the VMFA as part of the Sydney and Francis Lewis Collection.

As museum director Alex Nyerges explained, Tiffany: Color and Light is the first major international traveling exhibition to come to the VMFA since it reopened. It’s being shown in only three cities in the entire world: Paris, Montreal, and Richmond.

“You’ve gotta love how that sounds, don’t you?” Nyerges said with a grin as he welcomed visitors to Thursday’s media preview.

Nathalie Bondil, director of The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, was on hand to help Nyerges give the exhibition a proper introduction, and she had nothing but wonderful things to say about the VMFA staff and Richmond as a whole.

“It was a great pleasure to work with your community and your town,” said Bondil in her opening remarks.

She went on to explain that Tiffany: Color and Light came to be after her museum purchased a nearby church housing 18 windows created by Tiffany. From there, her staff decided to initiate a study of Tiffany’s work.

When Bondil’s museum carried the exhibit, it saw approximately 120,000 visitors come through the doors. She hopes Richmond will see similar numbers, helping to further establish the VMFA as a destination in the art world.

The exhibit does include examples of Tiffany paintings and mosaics, but glass remains the main focus. As one speaker explained, while Tiffany was definitely a traditional artist, his ambition to push the medium as far as it would go, combined with his exploration of color, form, and light, also made him very modern. Today he is the artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements.

More than 20 lead-glass windows are displayed in the exhibit, drawn from major museums and private collections from around the world, including the well-known “Magnolia” window (on loan from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia). Visitors can also see the “Angel of the Resurrection” window from 1904-5 that was once installed in the American Presbyterian Church in Montreal and joined the collection at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2008. It’s one of nine windows from Montreal on display for the first time in the United States.

While the main exhibit is housed in the NewMarket Gallery downstairs, you should make a point to head to the second floor and take a peek at the “Christ Resurrection” window. Once installed in All Saints Episcopal Church on W. Franklin Street, this window ended up in storage when the congregation made the move out to River Road in 1957. The VMFA arranged to take the window off their hands and hung it in the Cochrane Lounge, facing out to Boulevard, with plans to light it up at night — just imagine how amazing that’s going to look:

In addition to the exhibit, the VMFA has all kinds of supplemental fun and educational opportunities lined up. Youth and family programs include a Tiffany Family Fun Day with projects like kaleidoscopes and simulated stain glass, and a Cultural Art Party where kids can create a faux stained-glass lampshade, make a prism jar, and blow colored glass bubbles.

For those interested in maintaining a local focus, the museum has also organized a statewide driving tour of Tiffany windows, complete with podcasts available for download on the museum’s website. The tour includes stops in the Richmond area, like Temple Beth Ahabah and St. Paul’s and St. James Episcopal Churches.

Tiffany: Color and Light runs May 29 through August 15. Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors, students with IDs, kids ages seven to 17, or for groups of 10 or more. Members and kids under six are free.

For more information on this exhibit and related events, stop by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts website.

As the editor of RVANews, Valerie Catrow spends most of her time wrangling people over email and muttering to herself about the content calendar. She also contributes to our parenting column while maintaining her own blog, Made in Richmond. It should be noted that she loves tots, both the potato and child varieties.

May 28, 2010 6:00 AM 1