While Louis Tiffany and Clara Driscoll shared an artistic vision thatincluded the love of nature and an appreciation of beautiful materials,their backgrounds could not have been more different. Louis Tiffanywas a sophisticated New Yorker whose father was the renowned jewelerCharles Tiffany. Clara Pierce Wolcott was born to a humble farm family in Ohio. Showing an early aptitude for art and design, she attendedthe Cleveland Western Reserve School of Design. She worked for C. S.Ransom & Co., a local furniture maker, before moving to New York,where she enrolled in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to receive instruction as an “artist artisan.” Two-thirds of the four hundred studentswere young women, though she specialized in architectural decoration,an area dominated by men.
In 1888, Tiffany Glass Company hired Clara for its window and mosaic department; her work was interrupted a year later, when she becameengaged. After marrying, she left the company to assume her role asThe Tiffany Girls at New Rochelle, NY, 1905, the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum ofAmerican Art, Winter Park, Florida, © Charles Hosmer Morse Foundation, Inc.
