Clara and Mr. Tiffany (56 page)

The New-York Historical Society also has a substantial collection of lamps, one hundred and thirty-two from one donor, Dr. Egon Neustadt, which made it an appropriate venue for the exhibit
A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls
, in 2007, curated by Martin Eidelberg, Nina Gray, and Margaret K. Hofer, just two years after Clara Driscoll’s revealing correspondence became known. Her letters and the resulting exhibit and catalog served as the impetus and inspiration for this novel.

W
ERE IT NOT FOR THE ZEST OF VICTORIANS FOR REGULAR AND
detailed letter writing, the world would not have known of Clara Driscoll, and this book would not have been possible. I am grateful for the care with which Clara’s correspondence has been handled by archivists and conservators, and their enthusiasm in providing me full access to the letters. I refer to the Queens Historical Society board of trustees and staff, including Marisa Berman, executive director, and Richard Hourahan, collections manager; the Kelso House Museum Archives under the stewardship of Judi Allen, curator, housed at the Kent State University Library, Department of Special Collections; and Craig Simpson, special collections librarian, KSU. I thank both the Queens Historical Society and the Kelso House Museum for allowing me to use a handful of brief passages verbatim.

Deserving special recognition are the three curators who mounted the exhibit at the New-York Historical Society that brought Clara Driscoll and the work of the Tiffany Girls to the public eye: Martin Eidelberg, Nina Gray, and Margaret K. Hofer, whose jointly written and fascinating catalog,
A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls
, was of inestimable value. I thank them for their willingness to share their knowledge, and for their goodwill.

Several other individuals were generous with their time, and I appreciate their expertise as well: Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, curator of American decorative arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Arlie Sulka, owner and managing director, and Eric Silver, director of the Lillian Nassau Gallery, New York. The late Mrs. Nassau
was the first gallery owner to have realized the significance and value of Tiffany lamps, saving many from being destroyed for their bronze.

The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida, is primarily dedicated to decorative art produced by Tiffany Studios. Jennifer Thalheimer, curator and collection manager, was a continual and cheerful source of information during the research and writing phases of this book, and I thank her for her understanding responses to my string of questions. Donna Climenhage, curator, and Catherine Hinman, public relations director, were also on hand with their help.

For introducing me to Tiffany glass and to the process of making a leaded-glass lampshade in a hands-on way, I wish to thank Lindsy Parrott, director and curator, and Susan Greenbaum, conservator, of the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass, at Queens Museum of Art.

Particular books of scholarship on Tiffany provided wonderful source material:
The Lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany
by Martin Eidelberg,
Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall: An Artist’s Country Estate
by Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen,
Tiffany by Design: An In-Depth Look at Tiffany Lamps
by Nina Gray,
The Lost Treasures of Louis Comfort Tiffany
by Hugh F. McKean, and
The Lamps of Tiffany
by Dr. Egon Neustadt, as well as a related biography,
The Last Tiffany
by Michael John Burlingham. For the rest of my sources, please see
www.svreeland.com/tif-biblio.html
.

Thank you to Marna Hostetler, my interlibrary loan angel at the Thomas Cooper Library of the University of South Carolina, for going the extra page and never giving up in our search for obscure material, and to Ginny Hall of the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Public Library for her descriptive answers to my questions.

I have had many insightful critical readers of the manuscript in its various stages. For this, my gratitude goes to John Baker, Barbara Braun, Terry Cantor, Mark Doten, Kip Gray, John H. Ritter, Ron Schmidt, and especially Julie Brickman, who helped me to develop Clara’s relationship with Tiffany more deeply.

I count myself fortunate to have Jane von Mehren as my editor at Random House. Trusting her artful judgment, and grateful for her explanations, I have learned volumes, and am happy to be under her wing
again. I am also grateful to assistant editor Rebecca Shapiro and senior editor Caitlin Alexander, both of whom provided valuable criticism.

Always, for book after book, I have had my agent, Barbara Braun, at my side to give wise counsel, astute literary guidance, and knowledgeable comradeship in art museums. It was she who took me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2007 to see the exhibit
Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall
, and it was her husband, John Baker, who found a newspaper article about the New-York Historical Society exhibit
A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls
, and urged us to go. Heartfelt gratitude to them both.