SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.-The Seattle Art Museum presents Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist for the Ages, on view through January 4, 2006. Shimmering, iridescent glass vases; glass lampshades featuring the luminous gossamer wings and glowing eyes of dragonflies; stately stained-glass windows depicting lush garden landscapes; and luxurious objets d'art evoke the aesthetic of the foremost creator of decorative arts in early twentieth-century America: Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933).

The Seattle Art Museum is extremely fortunate to be the first presenting venue of a nationwide tour of the exhibition Louis Comfort Tiffany: Artist for the Ages, organized by Exhibitions International of New York. Curator Marilynn Johnson (former Associate Curator, the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) has assembled more than 120 major works, many of which are fragile, one-of-a-kind pieces that are difficult to procure for a traveling exhibition. Some of these important loans have never before been publicly exhibited.

As the son of Charles Tiffany, founder of the luxury silver and jewelry firm Tiffany & Company, Louis Comfort Tiffany benefited from a superb education and foreign travel. He was expected to take over the family business but chose instead to become an artist. He took up painting at an early age before developing an exceptional talent to create and assemble beautifully designed objects for churches and domestic interiors–including one-of-a-kind window designs, Favrile glass vases, enamels and jewelry, as well as mass-produced lamps, desk sets and chandeliers. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the virtuosity and success of these works had brought Tiffany international fame. With the assistance of talented artisans who were organized into workshops known as "Tiffany Studios," he created some of his finest work over the first two decades of the century.