n Company with Angels is a unique project begun by people from I a small Pennsylvania town who were inspired to share their 2001 rediscovery of a set of seven Tiffany church windows. A nonprofit organization, ICWA is dedicated to preserving the windows for future generations to discover and enjoy. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Tiffany designs were in great demand for American churches. It is estimated that 50% of Tiffany’s church windows have been lost, so the rediscovery of a series such as Angels Representing Seven Churches is a boon for the history of American . Angel Windows Timeline

1758 1848 1933 1688 Swedenborg’s best-known 1787 Louis Comfort Tiffany is 1902 Louis Comfort Tiffany Emanuel Swedenborg is book, Heaven and Hell, Swedenborg’s followers found born in City. Tiffany Studios creates dies in . born in Stockholm, Sweden. is published. the Church of the New Jerusalem windows depicting angels in London. representing seven churches as described in the Book of Revelation.

1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950

1811 1903 1772 First New Jerusalem Society Church of the New Jerusalem is dedicated in Swedenborg dies in London. of Cincinnati is organized. Cincinnati, with seven angel windows formally presented by the New Church Society of Glendale, OH. (The only existing clue to the possible cost of the windows is an appraisal from this time for $7,865.)

1964 2001 1958 The State of Ohio tears the church down. 1989 Rev. Susannah Currie rediscovers Cincinnati newspaper reports that Parishioners purchase the windows back Temenos board approves $50,000 the crated windows in a storage shed. 2006 the Church of the New Jerusalem from the city for $50,000. to purchase the angel windows for its The search for a window restoration Restoration of the may be torn down. conference center. expert begins. windows is completed.

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2007 1963 1991 In Company with Cincinnati City Council confirms the route 1986 Windows are transported Angels museum of highway I-71 through church property. The General Convention of the New in a U-Haul truck to the 2004 tour begins. Jerusalem, a branch of the Swedenborgian Temenos property, where Swedenborgian Church at Church, purchases property for the Temenos they are stored in a shed. Tenemos receives an anony- Retreat Center in West Chester, PA. mous donation of $50,000 to restore the windows. ouis omfort iffany and the L C T American Movement

eginning in the 1870s, the demand for stained with making his own and in his name. In time, the firm branched out into stained glass church windows increased dramatically 1892 opened his own glass glass lamps and other decorative items. B as congregations and individuals commis- furnace in Queens. There he sioned windows in memory of deceased leaders and invented an extraordinary Tiffany retired from the firm that bore his name in loved ones. The art of stained glass, known for range of colors, textures, 1919 to establish a foundation to aid and train young hundreds of years, underwent an American rebirth. and patterns—over 5,000 artists. The new owners of Tiffany Studios filed for varieties. He was especially bankruptcy in 1932, and Tiffany died in January of Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848- well known for his opalescent the following year. 1933), a landscape painter and glass, achieved by fusing son of the famed New York or layering different colors jeweler, started his career as Tiffany Studios, Madison Ave. at 45th St., NYC of glass with white, creating an interior designer. He became a marbled effect. Layering several sheets resulted in the country’s most prominent subtle gradations of luminous color and depth. Pulling stained glass maker during the and twisting the molten glass produced irregular period 1875 to 1930, reviving folds simulating fabric. You can see examples of the medieval approach to glass- several different types of glass in a case near the Louis Comfort Tiffany making, which involved joining exit from the exhibition. sections of vividly colored glass with lines of lead. He accepted the later Renaissance style of applying Crafting windows for a national and international pigment to clear glass only for faces and limbs of market, Tiffany Studios became immensely successful, figures, where delicate modeling was needed. with hundreds of employees and thousands of Tiffany stained glass workers commissions. Church windows dominated Tiffany’s Dissatisfied with the limited color range of commer- production and he maintained high quality by cially available glass, Tiffany began to experiment personally approving every composition that carried AG’s collection of Tiffany blown and molded glass Mobjects is relatively small and can’t begin to convey the enormous variety of shapes and colors the company produced.

One of Tiffany’s great innovations was favrile glass, which had an iridescent quality obtained by combining different colors of glass while molten, rather than applying a finish to the surface only. According to Tiffany, “Favrile glass is distinguished by brilliant or deeply toned colors, usually iridescent like the wings of certain American butterflies, the necks of pigeons and peacocks, the wing covers of various beetles.”

The iridescence of ancient Roman and Syrian glass that Tiffany saw at the Victoria and Albert Museum as early as 1865 was probably a direct inspiration; those remarkable colors were the result of impurities in the medium and degradation over time. Tiffany’s favrile glass in turn spawned a wave of less expensive imitations, today known as carnival glass, that relied on the application of metallic salts to the surface while the glass was still hot.

Don’t miss the two spectacular examples of Tiffany stained glass on view in the permanent collec- tion galleries near the stairs to the second floor.

Given in memory of Gift of Ruth Rand Rapport Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Dunn by their family in memory of Harold S. Rand ollecting and metalwork has been a could be equally attracted to objects produced over 100 Cpassion for Jeffrey Metzger and Robin Hamilton for years apart. the past 22 years. The first item they purchased was As Metzger points out, Louis Comfort Tiffany’s wish a small blown-glass candle lamp; within a year, they was to “paint with glass.” He cites the richness of the knew they wanted to devote their resources to the much many types of Tiffany glass, as well as the fluidity of more complex stained glass work. Their Tiffany collection the firm’s designs, as the key elements that have kept now numbers in the hundreds, much of which is in daily him and his wife enthralled for over two decades. use in their Rochester home. Metzger and Hamilton truly enjoy sharing their collection The couple’s interests are not limited to the antique. They with others. Memorial Art Gallery thanks them for also collect the work of sculptor/metalsmith Albert Paley, lending eight particularly rare and beautiful lamps to who acknowledges his debt to the sinuous natural forms this exhibition. of . Upon studying the bases of these Tiffany table lamps, it is easy to see how Metzger and Hamilton Making a Stained Glass Window The fabrication of a stained glass window begins with an idea and a pencil sketch. From there, a detailed presentation watercolor is made and shared with the client. A few examples of presentation pieces line the walls to your left, made by various artists over several decades at Pike Stained Glass Studios here in Rochester. Once the concept and composition are approved, the drawing is enlarged to fit the intended window. In the large-scale drawing, called a cartoon, the artist must also designate where the leads will go—an important consideration both structurally and aesthetically. At left is the cartoon for a window designed by Valerie O’Hara of Pike Stained Glass Studios and installed in St. Mary’s Church in Swormville, New York, in 2010 (see photograph below).