WINTER PARK, FLA.- The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art launches its 2015–2016 season this fall with a complete reinstallation of the museum’s popular exhibit of Tiffany Studios’ lamps and lighting fixtures and an accompanying focus exhibition on the firm’s Daffodil design reading lamp.

In the winter, the Museum opens a new exhibit of Tiffany art glass and a vignette to showcase for the first time the charming souvenir, commemorative, and antique spoons collected by the Morse-McKean family.

On Friday nights from November through April, the public is invited to enjoy free admission from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., along with live music, gallery tours, and more on selected evenings. The Museum’s extended Friday hours begin November 6 and conclude April 29.

The Museum’s 2015–2016 schedule also includes Tuesday and Thursday curator tours of the exhibition Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Laurelton Hall; the 37th annual Christmas in the Park display of Tiffany windows on Thursday, December 3; and open house events for Christmas Eve, the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, Easter weekend, and Independence Day.

Selections from the Morse Museum’s renowned collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933)—including his chapel from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and objects and architectural elements from his Long Island country estate, Laurelton Hall—are always on view. The following are new and ongoing exhibitions for the 2015–2016 season:

Tiffany Lamps and Lighting from the Morse Collection
Opens October 20, 2015
The Museum’s exhibition of lamps and lighting from Tiffany Studios will be completely refreshed in conjunction with the opening of an accompanying show focusing on a single lamp—the Daffodil design reading lamp. Highlights of the new installation will be a 28-inch hanging Dogwood design shade, after 1900; a floor lamp, c. 1902, with a leaded-glass Bamboo design shade; and lighting examples by Tiffany competitors. Although Louis Comfort Tiffany was an international success before his first lamp, it is the lamps more than anything else that has extended the breadth and depth of his popularity across America and through time, from the 1890s to this day. With his lamps and lighting fixtures, Tiffany created a signature style of lighting that captured the American and European audience and now fascinates and charms people all over the world.

Focus Exhibition: Tiffany Studios’ Daffodil Reading Lamp
Opens October 20, 2015
From the shape of its base to the decoration of its leaded-glass shade, the Morse Museum’s Daffodil design reading lamp, c.1899 to 1905, from Tiffany Studios reveals much about the era in which it was produced. This exhibition will provide an in-depth examination of the lamp, including details of its inspiration, creation, and production. In tracking the lamp from its inception to its sale, the exhibit will also show the behind-the-scenes organization of artist, artisan, and business manager required to produce these iconic objects.

Vignette: Collectible Spoons from the Morse Collection
Opens February 9, 2016
In this vignette, the Morse presents selections from more than 400 spoons collected by the Charles Hosmer Morse and Hugh F. McKean families. Dating from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, they include souvenir, commemorative, and antique spoons of all variety and shape. These objects were treasured by the Morses and McKeans for the same reasons spoons have been collected over the past three centuries—for their availability, affordability, charm, and memories.

Tiffany Art Glass from the Morse Collection
Opens February 9, 2016
Tiffany Studios was arguably the best decorative glass producer in the world in its day and undoubtedly one of the best of all time. In his art glass, introduced to the public in 1893, Louis Comfort Tiffany used sources that included antiquity, horticulture, rocks, and the flow of lava. Through exploitation of chemistry, mechanics, and logistics in production, he transformed his ideas into objects of astonishing variety, imagination, and beauty. In a new installation from its permanent collection, the Morse presents examples of Tiffany art glass that richly illustrate the artist’s mastery of this medium.

Selections from the Harry C. Sigman Gift of European and American Decorative Art
Through January 24, 2016
In 2014 Harry C. Sigman, a Los Angeles attorney, donated 86 objects to the Morse from his collection of European and American decorative art. This exhibit presents selections from that gift. The donation—which dovetails with the late 19th- and early 20th-century styles represented in the Morse collection— includes art glass, pottery, metalwork, and furniture. Though comprised mainly of Jeannette and Hugh McKean’s massive gift, the Morse collection has always been supported by generous individuals such as Harry Sigman whose contributions have helped it to grow in important ways. The finely crafted objects on view can be appreciated both individually and in the context of the Museum’s entire collection.

Lifelines—Forms and Themes of Art Nouveau
Through September 25, 2016
In French, Art Nouveau means “new art,” and at the turn of the 20th century, this new art looked different, felt different, and reflected different values and ideas. Through more than 100 objects from the Museum’s collection, this exhibition explores the interrelated elements that define this style so well known for its lively line and organic form. The exhibition—featuring furniture, architectural ornaments, lamps, jewelry, ceramics, and art glass from more than 50 makers, designers, and artists working across nine countries—is organized into groups that illustrate such dominant Art Nouveau themes as nature, female form, and metamorphosis.

The Bride Elect—Gifts from the 1905 Wedding of Elizabeth Owens Morse
Through September 24, 2017
In 1905 Elizabeth Owens Morse, the daughter of Charles Hosmer Morse and Martha Owens Morse, married Richard Millard Genius. The gift registry of this socially prominent Chicago bride—entitled “The Bride Elect”—survives in the Morse Museum’s archive, showing more than 250 gifts. Together these items provide a snapshot of the era, a glimpse into 1905 gift-giving traditions, and some insight into popular retail decisions made by wealthy consumers in the Chicago area. In this exhibition, the Morse presents a representative group of the lovely gifts from the Morse-Genius wedding, including Tiffany art glass, Rookwood pottery, and Gorham silver.

Revival and Reform—Eclecticism in the 19th-Century Environment
Ongoing
Gallery talks, Wednesdays, 11a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
The Arts window, c. 1894, by J. & R. Lamb Studios is the centerpiece of this exhibition that illustrates the rich diversity of styles that made up the visual environment of the late 19th century in both Europe and America. Lamb Studios, a prominent American glasshouse of the era, exhibited the neoclassical window widely. The installation, organized from objects in the Museum’s collection, features more than 20 leaded-glass windows and panels as well as selections of art glass, pottery, and furniture. Besides works by Lamb, windows on view—some avant-garde, others reviving styles of the past—include examples by Tiffany Studios, John LaFarge, Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Burne-Jones, Donald MacDonald, and Heaton, Butler & Bayne.

Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Laurelton Hall
Curator Tours, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m.
Cell phone audio tour available
Louis Comfort Tiffany’s grand country estate on Long Island, built between 1902 and 1905, was arguably the designer’s greatest work of art. The Museum’s permanent exhibition of art and architectural elements from Laurelton Hall includes the restored Daffodil Terrace and more than 200 objects from important rooms. The installation, which opened in 2011, features two dozen leaded-glass windows, as well as lamps, art glass, and furnishings in galleries that suggest their context in Tiffany’s original design for the mansion.

Tiffany Chapel
Ongoing
The celebrated chapel interior that Louis Comfort Tiffany created for exhibition at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago established his reputation internationally and proved pivotal in his career. The Byzantine-Romanesque masterpiece, formerly installed on the grounds of the artist’s estate on Long Island, opened as an exhibit at the Morse in 1999. Its architectural elements include four leaded-glass windows, 16 glass-mosaic encrusted columns, and a 10-foot by eight-foot electrified chandelier.