Design & Desire in the Twentieth Century

“This is rather difficult work, but when one has a fondness for a certain brand of industry, she does not pause when a difficulty must be overcome.” – Clara Wolcott Driscoll

This past summer the Munson Williams Proctor Museum in Utica, NY held an exhibition, “Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection.” The astonishing show featured Tiffany’s most iconic lamps, many designed by a woman whose name is largely forgotten now, Clara Wolcott Driscoll. The women who assembled Mrs. Driscoll’s designs were popularly referred to as “Tiffany Girls,”(1), and they worked under her in Tiffany’s Women’s Glass Cutting Department. Driscoll was the designer behind many of the best well-known lamps to emerge from Tiffany Studios: Daffodil, Wisteria, Dragonfly, and Peony lamps (2).

Clara Wolcott Driscoll for Tiffany Studios (1900), Daffodil Shade (detail). Photo credit: Telome4 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14892217 Image source.

Young Clara Pierce Wolcott

Clara Pierce Wolcott was born in Talmadge, Ohio in 1861. Her father, Elizur V. Wolcott studied theology and aspired to be a missionary but his poor health prevented that dream from becoming a reality. Instead, Wolcott became a farmer and teacher (3). Tragically, Wolcott died in 1873, forcing his wife Fannie to find work as a teacher in order to support Clara and her three younger sisters (3). Fannie Wolcott who had attended the Talmadge Academy was determined that her daughters would also receive an education. With her family connections, Fannie placed “Clara with relatives living near the excellent (and free) Central High School”(3) in Cleveland, Ohio.

During her time at Central High School, young Clara demonstrated a keen interest in the natural world, especially flowers. This interest was undoubtedly encouraged by naturalist, Harriet Louise Keeler who was an instructor at the school during that time (3). After graduation, Clara enrolled in “the Western Reserve School of Design for Women (now the Cleveland Institute of Art)”(2). Not much, however, is known about Clara’s time there.

Sometime after Clara’s secondary studies were completed, she had “taken a position as designer for C. S. Ransom and Company, a Cleveland-based manufacturer of Moorish-influenced fretwork panels”(3).

Clara Driscoll Joins, Departs and then Rejoins Tiffany Studios

In the fall of 1888, Clara left Cleveland and headed to New York City to continue her art education “at the then-new Metropolitan Museum Art School” (2). Not long after her arrival in New York Louis Comfort Tiffany hired her as a designer in his studio. At Tiffany Studios Clara “earned the intricacies of glass selection and cutting,”(3) but after only a year with Tiffany, Clara left to get married as was the law in New York at that time.  In 1989, Clara married Francis Driscoll who was thirty years her senior. In 1892 Mr. Driscoll died, and Clara, widowed, was rehired by Tiffany. Soon after Tiffany named Clara to head the Women’s Glasscutting Department (3). She had excellent managerial skills with an aptitude “for realizing a great profit from lamps and fancy goods”(4). When Clara took over the glasscutting department six women were working under her, eventually the staff would grow to thirty-five strong. These women earned the nickname “The Tiffany Girls”(5).

Clara Wolcott Driscoll (third row far left, wearing a white blouse) and the “Tiffany Girls” (circa 1904). Photo courtesy of The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of Art.

Challenges Faced by Clara Driscoll and the Women Working at Tiffany Studios

 The women in her department selected the glass for the shades, “cutting the individual segments using templates, and wrapping them with copper foil”(5). The men would assemble the lamps by attaching the glass pieces to molds and soldering the copper foil edges together. 

Over time rivalries developed between the men and the women workers. Men were “making windows, mosaics, and leaded shades” while the women for a time were relegated to only glass cutting. The men belonged to a union that “did not admit women,” so the women could not enjoy the same benefits as the men. Tiffany, however, paid his male and female employees equally which angered many of the men (5). “In 1903, the men threatened to strike in order to take away the women’s right to make windows”(5). Tiffany refused to meet the union’s demands but agreed to limit “the number of women in Driscoll’s department at 27”(5).

Mrs. Driscoll, herself became frustrated with faced staffing issues in the Women’s Glasscutting Department. Since married women were barred from employment Driscoll, would invest in developing a young talent only to lose the young woman to the wedding altar (5).

Clara’s Mystery Engagement

Mrs. Driscoll had also considered remarrying sometime between 1896 and 1897; she became engaged to Edwin Waldo the brother of artist George B. Waldo, one of Driscoll’s friends. While on route to meet his potential future in-laws in Ohio, Edwin inexplicably disappeared. No one heard from him for five years. Possibly due to the painful nature of this episode, Mrs. Driscoll never referred to it in any of her writings (3).

Clara Driscoll’s Major Works for Tiffany

During 1896 “Clara began experimenting with lamps”(5). Along with “Tiffany designer Agnes Northrop and fellow Cleveland art school classmate Alice Carmen Gouvy (also hired by Tiffany), Mrs. Driscoll designed the innovative Flying Fish lamp and Deep Sea mosaic and glass-jeweled base”(2). In addition to lamps, she designed “desk and boudoir accessories, often in combinations of glass, bronze, and mosaic”(3).

Driscoll drew her inspiration for her iconic lamp designs upon her life-long passion for and study of nature. Based upon information Driscoll shared in one of her letters, the daffodil lamp was her first important lamp design in 1900. That same year her design for the dragonfly lamp, “won a prize at the 1900 World’s Fair,”(6) that design, however, had long been credited to her boss, Louis Comfort Tiffany (6). The stunning wisteria lamp has also been attributed to Clara (5).

Clara Driscoll’s Later Years

In 1909 Driscoll left Tiffany Studio for the final time to marry Edwin Booth. While marriage ended Mrs. Driscoll’s professional career, she continued designing – this time the product was colorful silk scarves. Edwin retired from his job managing an import business in 1929 just as the Great Depression struck, and the couple spent the remainder of their years in Florida. Their marriage would last thirty-five years until Clara’s death in 1944 (3).

Clara Driscoll’s Design Legacy

Clara Driscoll’s real role in Tiffany Studios went largely forgotten. When the company folded “in 1932, all the records were lost”(1). In 1953 when her sister Emily died, a trove of letters between the two sisters was discovered. It was not until almost 40 years later, however, that the letters were recognized by scholars when one of Driscoll’s relatives “Elizabeth A. Jones Yeargin transcribed a sampling from the letters for her work…self-published as a bound typescript titled The Pierce and Wolcott Letters”(3).

During Clara Driscoll’s career about thirty “or so lamps believed to have been designed by or created under”(6) her direction. These included “the Wisteria, Dragonfly, Peony, and from all accounts, her first — the Daffodil”(2). One Wisteria Lamp sold for $492,500 on December 14, 2017, at Christie’s in New York (7).  Driscoll’s lamps are held in the collections in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and in numerous museums throughout the world. In recent years, numerous exhibitions of Tiffany lamps that featured Driscoll’s works, like the recent show in Utica, NY,  have been held. The first to specifically acknowledge her contributions to Tiffany Studios was the New-York Historical Society 2007 show, “A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls.” Also that year, a book of the same title by Martin Eidelberg, Nina Gray and Margaret Hofer was published, and in 2011 Susan Vreeland published her historical novel Clara and Mr. Tiffany, based on the relationship between Mrs. Driscoll and Louis Comfort Tiffany (1). It may have been a long time coming, but the world is beginning to recognize the design genius of Clara Wolcott Driscoll.

References

1. Taylor, K., (13 February 2007). “Tiffany’s Secret Is Over,”  The New York Sun website. https://www.nysun.com/arts/tiffanys-secret-is-over/48495/
2. Wikipedia, (29 May 2019). Clara Driscoll (glass designer). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Driscoll_(glass_designer)
3. Bassett, M., (1 January 2012). “Breaking Tiffany’s Glass Ceiling: Clara Wolcott Driscoll (1861-1944),” Cleveland Institute of Art website. https://www.cia.edu/news/stories/breaking-tiffanys-glass-ceiling-clara-wolcott-driscoll-1861-1944
4. The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art (2019). “Tiffany Studio Designers,” The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art website http://www.morsemuseum.org/louis-comfort-tiffany/tiffany-studios-designers
5. Gedal, A., (27 March 2015). “Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls,” The New York Historical Society and Museum website http://behindthescenes.nyhistory.org/tiffany-girls/
6. Kastner, J., (25 February 2007). “Out of Tiffany’s Shadow, a Woman of Light,” New York Times Online Archives. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/arts/design/25kast.html?pagewanted=print
7. Vilinsky, B., (9 August 2019). “Collecting Guide: 10 Things to Know About Tiffany Lamps,” Christie’s website. https://www.christies.com/features/Tiffany-lamps-10-things-you-need-to-know-9542-3.aspx

If our recent post on John Lautner has you interested in “Googie Architecture” and you’re craving more, Curbed Los Angeles has put together a map of “15 of LA’s Most Glorious Remaining Googies.” If you in the Los Angeles area or planning a trip there you may want to visit, if not you’ll still enjoy these “out-of-this-world” designs!

Henry Harrison, Chips Diner (1955), Los Angeles. Image source.

Early this year the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library of Columbia University published an extensive digital guide of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s drawings and archives. In an interview with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the digital guide’s archivist Shelley Heyreh explained the guide’s purpose, “We hope the Guide will reveal the depth and diversity of materials in this substantial and historically significant archive.”

The digital guide includes Wright’s drawings, publications, correspondence, films, manuscripts, and Taliesin Associated Architects records. “While the majority of the Foundation Archives is cataloged and open to researchers in our reading room, there are still some collections, such as the Oral Histories and Film Reels, currently undergoing archival processing,” according to Ms. Heyreh.

Visit the Frank Lloyd Wright Digital Guide at the Avery.

Read more on the digital guide on the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation website.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Guggenheim Museum (1959), New York, NY. Image source.

Thank you to Mod Betty at RetroRoadMap.com for sharing a post on the Bagdad Theatre in Portland, OR. Since 1927, the theater has been offering Portland moviegoers an exotic venue in which to watch their favorite films. According to CinemaTreasures.com the Bagdad was originally part of the theatre chain owned by Universal Pictures. The current owners have added a pub and billiards room for theatre patrons to enjoy. 

Thomas and Mercier Architects, Bagdad Theater (1927), Portland, OR. Image source.

Read ModBetty’s post on the Bagdad Theatre.

The Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York will be exhibiting a retrospective of Yoko Ono’s work from the 1960s to the present, Yoko Ono: Remembering the Future. For the artist, it is a return to the venue of an earlier more controversial show held in 1971. For the Everson, it is the final event of a year-long fiftieth-anniversary celebration. 

In 1971 the museum had opened its doors only three years earlier, and its director at the time was denounced by the local media for inviting Yoko Ono to exhibit her work. It was felt that the motivation in asking Ms. Ono to show hin Syracuse was less about the relevance of Ms. Ono’s work and more about the notoriety that would accompany her husband the former Beatle John Lennon.

The 2019 exhibit which will include several large-scale installations will fill “nearly the full interior of the Everson and some outdoor space” says the Everson’s executive director and CEO Elizabeth Dunbar in an article on Syracuse.com. According to the Everson Museum’s website, “Remembering The Future traces Ono’s experimental approach to engaging audiences as a means of contributing to a more accepting and peaceful world.”

Yoko Ono, Skyladders, 1968/2016 © 2016 Yoko Ono. Photo credit: Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece. Photo source.

Yoko Ono: Remembering the Future runs from August 31 to October 27, 2019, at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York. For details visit everson.org.

Read the article about the Yoko Ono exhibit on syracuse.com.

Read an article from the New York Times online archive about Yoko Ono’s 1971 show.

In the early 1970s architect, John Lautner designed a Palm Springs, California home for entertainer Bob Hope and his wife Dolores. Unfortunately, the architect-client relationship was not an ideal one. Mrs. Hope made several major design decisions that clashed with Launter’s original vision for the house. According to a quote in a recent Los Angeles Times article Lautner said the project “was an ugly, tough job.” A fire on the construction site and the untimely death of interior designer Arthur Elrod made the situation worse.

More than forty years later the house was purchased by venture capitalist Ron Burkle who is fulfilling the architect’s original vision along with the help of Helena Arahuete who assisted Lautner on the original project and is now the principal of Lautner Associates. Designer Tim Gleason was hired to handle the interiors. Lautner’s preferred materials of mahogany and copper were used along with quartzite flooring, replacing Mrs. Hope’s highly ornamental gold, pink and black interiors.

The multi-year project is now close to completion. Owner Burkle plans to open up his home to “groups he supports for charity fundraisers, political gatherings and receptions.” 

Read the entire article on the Los Angeles Times website and see an interview with Helena Arahuete. 

John Lautner, Bob and Dolores Hope House, Palm Springs, CA. Image source.

There’s been quite a bit of buzz about the opening of the TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. The project involved the repurposing of Eero Saarinen’s grand terminal at JFK into a luxury hotel.

Recently Dezeen.com posted a story about the branding of the hotel that was “based on the branding and wayfinding that Finnish-American architect Saarinen designed for the airport building when it opened in 1962.” Designer Michael Bierut headed up the branding project for Pentagram. A new typeface Flight Center Gothic was created and used in everything for the hotel from signage and marketing materials to guest toiletries.

Read the post on Dezeen.com.

On July 19, 2019 architect Cesar Pelli died in New Haven, Connecticut. He was possibly best-known for designing skyscrapers such as the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia and the Goldman Sachs tower in Jersey City, New Jersey. According to Pelli’s obituary in the New York Times, “His Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004.”

Pelli was born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina and came to the United States in the early 1950s to study architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As a young architect, Pelli worked under Finnish architect Eero Saarinen, there he was involved with Saarinen’s project for the TWA Flight Center at Kennedy Airport. The terminal building was recently repurposed as a hotel.

In the late 1960s and 1970s Pelli used colored glass as a major design element in buildings such as the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, CA (also known as “The Blue Whale”) and the Cleveland Clinic. Pelli opened his own architecture firm in 1977. One of Pelli’s most prestigious commissions was the 1984 expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. While the completed project did not receive critical acclaim, it did result in more commissions for Pelli. 

Pelli’s later buildings include One Canada Square in London; the National Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan; Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida; and Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.

Read Cesar Pelli’s obituary on the New York Times website.

Cesar Pelli, Pacific Design Center (1975), Los Angeles, California. Image source.