From the Stacks - Mary Emrick

Stained Glass Artistry and Ardor in New York City’s Gilded Age


 

Clara and Mr. Tiffany
by Susan Vreeland

   Natchez, Mississippi, is well known as a community that welcomes “the arts.” Beginning at infancy, Natchezians are exposed to most forms of art—architecture, furniture, porcelains, portraits, pottery, paintings, literature, music, film, gardens, and murals—and we grow to appreciate them all. On our muddy shores, we have entertained such nationally known artists as John James Audubon, Fannie Elssler, John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor, and John Grisham; and we take pride in our homegrown artists Greg Isles, Glen Ballard, Conner Burns, Duncan Morgan, and John Grady Burns to mention a few. We are brought up to appreciate all art forms. This may be why I was drawn to Susan Vreeland’s new historical fiction novel Clara and Mr. Tiffany.
   Louis Comfort Tiffany is well known in Natchez as the artist of two priceless, beautiful stained-glass windows that he installed in the early 1900s at Trinity Episcopal Church. Natchez citizens enjoy sharing the splendor and inspiration of these rare works of art with visitors to our city. We are all familiar with the stained glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, but who is Clara Driscoll?
   Susan Vreeland, bestselling author of five arts-related, historical novels, recently completed her sixth novel, Clara and Mr. Tiffany. Vreeland could not have written this novel without the Victorian penchant for letter writing. Clara Driscoll’s correspondence with her family and friends has been well preserved by museums in New York and Ohio. With the help of museum curators, Vreeland accessed the letters and created a novel of exceptional worth, cataloguing life in New York City’s Gilded Age and the life of little-known artist Clara Driscoll.
   The colorful characters of Vreeland’s novel are lifted directly from Driscoll’s letters. The Bohemian inhabitants of the Irish boarding house in Manhattan where Driscoll lived and her fellow artisans at the Tiffany Studios are melded to create a beautiful story of love, longing, and liberation.
   As in other Vreeland novels, the author focuses on a little-known fact in art history and uses the fact to guide a tour through life in another era while educating us about an artist and art form. Vreeland brings turn-of-the-nineteenth-century New York City into our homes. Its street noises, cable cars, street vendors, operas, slums, and formal balls are vividly displayed through her writing the story of Clara Driscoll.
   Driscoll is portrayed as a pioneer for women’s rights in the work place. She became the head of Tiffany Studios’ women’s department known as the “Tiffany Girls,” and there she taught women the art of colored glass. Before her work and relation with Mr. Tiffany, women artists were not paid wages for their work; they could trade their creations for other goods or give them as gifts.
   In collaboration with Louis Tiffany, Clara Driscoll is credited with developing the idea and prototype for the Tiffany Lamp. In addition, she created many new techniques and designs for windows and lamps, and she is revered for advancing the role and status of women in the work place.
   Susan Vreeland is a lover of art and through her novels inspires others to take a closer look. You may find yourself “googling” Tiffany lamps while reading Clara and Mr. Tiffany—I did!
   Susan Vreeland lives in San Diego where she writes and teaches art and English literature in public schools.