SUSAN VREELAND'S WORK IN PROGRESS
Clara and Mr. Tiffany
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During the Gilded Age at the turn of the twentieth century, Louis Comfort Tiffany, the American artist in glass whose gorgeous leaded-glass windows, lamps, and mosaics are known throughout the world, established a style unique to him, blending Art Nouveau and the Aesthetics Movement. Driven by the Tiffany Family Imperative to honor his father, owner of Tiffany & Co., by surpassing his elder's artistic and financial success, and by outshining all his competition, Tiffany must confront the central issue in the Arts and Crafts debate: art versus industry, and its concomitant, creative indulgence versus financial restraint.
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Until recently, it was assumed that he was the designer of the lamps. However, two collections of letters reveal that an unrecognized woman, Clara Driscoll, designed the floral shades in leaded glass. Suffering losses in love, as Tiffany has, and yearning to establish herself as a creator of unique art pieces in an atmosphere increasingly commercial, Clara is a vibrant, intelligent, wry woman whose challenge, like that of many women, is to decide what makes her happy--the professional world of her hands, or the personal world of her heart.
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The novel will interpret her creative and personal life, her loves, losses, and triumphs against the backdrop of her relationship and collaboration with this giant of American decorative arts.
Expect it in January 2011.
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