"Tiffany: The Pursuit of Beauty in Nature" at Selby Gardens

For the seventh year running, Selby Gardens has mounted an exhibit highlighting the work of an artist who looked to nature for inspiration. This year's homage features the art of Louis Comfort Tiffany, and the Tiffany lamps and the like on display are gorgeous. But it's the Tiffany-inspired installations across the Gardens that make the exhibit so much fun.  

Like most people, I start my visits to Selby with a stop in the orchid house. I never fail to be amazed by the beauty and variety of orchids on display. It turns out there's a historical reason orchids are a centerpiece of the botanicals on display at the Gardens. Back in the 1970s when Selby was just getting started, three orchid botanists were tapped to establish the facility as a research institution. I bet they'd love the way the orchids have been incorporated into the Tiffany exhibit. There's even a faux Tiffany window showcasing some of the beautiful blooms. 

The Museum of Botany & the Arts is currently home to the Tiffany lamps, windows and mosaics on loan to the Gardens. The entryway to the hushed and darkened room where they are displayed features three windows filled with Spirit Specimens from Selby's collection. To me, they are just as beautiful as Tiffany's creations, especially when lit in a way that mimics a stained glass window. 

This brings us back to Selby's identity as a research facility as well as a botanical garden. Selby maintains a Spirit Specimen Collection of more than 35,000 vials of preserved flowers and other plant parts. The fluid in which they're maintained is 70 percent denatured alcohol, 27 percent water and three percent glycerin. (Everyone seems curious about the mysterious preservative.) This approach allows the plants to be viewed in their natural three-dimensional form. What a tool for researchers -- especially when combined with dried, pressed specimens of the same plant. According to Selby's website, its Spirit Specimen Collection is the largest in the western hemisphere and second in the world only to the Royal Botanic Gardens in the U.K. 

In addition to being visually beautiful, the Spirit Specimens are a reminder that Tiffany and his team worked from nature. So were the black and white botanical illustrations from the Encyclopedie Artistique & Documentaire de la Plante included in the exhibit. The four volume Encyclopedie contained more than 380 drawings and photographs by artists associated with the Art Nouveau style. The pages on display were stamped "Tiffany Studios," a confirmation that these drawings in fact were looked to by Tiffany's designers. While it was strictly verboten to take pictures in the Museum, I found some pages from the Encyclopedie for sale on eBay. (The internet is a wonderful thing.) Like the illustrations on display in the Museum, the Tiffany Studios mark can be found on the bottom of the page. To see the rest of the nine page lot, click here. And just to bring this back to Selby, the Gardens boast a collection of more than 3,000 botanical prints. Most are 18th and 19th century engravings and lithographs used for research purposes. Just a thought, but wouldn't an exhibit of the highlights from the collection be interesting? 

Clara Driscoll cartoon of daffodil shade

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the importance of Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls to Tiffany's empire. Driscoll is credited with the idea of the leaded glass shades for which Tiffany is so well known, and she and her team designed the nature-inspired shades. Driscoll and the Girls were also responsible for cutting the glass for the shades, with the men in Tiffany's employ doing the assembly and soldering. I particularly enjoyed having the chance to see a "cartoon" or preparatory drawing for a 14" daffodil shade on display next to one of the leaded glass lamps. It's always fun to get a peek inside the process. For more on Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls, click here.  

Kudos to Selby Gardens for putting together another excellent exhibit combining art and nature. "Tiffany: The Pursuit of Beauty in Nature" runs through June 25th. While the best way to see the exhibit is in person, Selby created a video that can be enjoyed no matter where you are. Click here to watch it. And if you're a real fan of Tiffany, a visit to the Morse Museum in Winter Park should be on your list. It is dedicated to the the work of Tiffany and even includes a restored version of his Daffodil Terrace. For more information about the Morse, click here.