NPR interview with the author of Clara and Mr. Tiffany, Susan Vreeland -our summer reading choice
Here is what others have said about this book:
"In Clara and Mr. Tiffany, Susan Vreeland's careful, informative, and intermittently grinding fifth novel, the creative force behind the iconic Tiffany lamp steps forward into sepia-tinted light.
Though Louis Comfort Tiffany took credit for the stunning stained glass windows, mosaics, and decorative objects that his Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company produced in turn-of-the-century New York, many of his signature pieces were designed and produced by a group of skilled female artisans known as the Tiffany Girls. Their leader was Clara Driscoll, a forward-thinking and artistically ambitious woman who worked at the studio for more than two decades...Clara proves highly appealing to her fellow characters, many of whom are also based on real people. She forms a tight friendship with George Waldo, a puckish painter, and his lover, Henry McBride, The New York Sun's long-time art critic. And a slow-simmering romance with another resident at her Irving Place boarding house, actor Edward Booth (in the novel, he is Bernard), gives the novel its ultimate conflict: which is more important, Art or Love?"
Reviewed by Emily Chenoweth Barnes and Noble
"While I enjoyed Clara’s story (I’m always ready to learn about women doing things that women aren’t “supposed” to do), it was the study of the exacting process of putting a lamp or stained glass window together that really had me enthralled. So many people had to get their parts just right in order for it to become the treasure we see in museums today. The meticulous labor required is shown throughout this book from learning about the initial drawings, through selecting all the different glasses, metals, and ceramics. Art, created for the glory of how a person responds to its color and shape, is the real central character here. And what people will do to have that beauty in their lives.
While this is certainly not a scholarly treatise on leaded glass lampshades, nor on the life of working women in the 1900′s, it is a wonderful treasure of a book that helps you take that first magical step into those worlds. Read this book and, if it doesn’t at least inspire you to do a “Google” image search of Tiffany lamps and windows I will be extremely surprised."
Dallas Library Book Review
