In childhood, Clara Driscoll reveled in the gardens and natural world of her home. After art school, she moved to New York City to earn money to help her family. Hired by glassmaker Louis Comfort Tiffany, Clara was one of “a team of artists who selected and cut glass to create pictures and shapes in windows.” She was soon put in charge of a workshop of women, the Tiffany Girls. When she asked her sisters to send flowers and butterflies from home, their return mail inspired her to design a lamp that incorporated the shape of butterfly wings, followed by another incorporating dragonflies. The lamps were laborious to make, but Louis was so impressed that he asked her to make one to display at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, where it won the bronze medal. Louis wanted more lamps and windows by the Tiffany Girls, which angered the company craftsmen who fit the glass pieces together with metal borders. While he promised the craftsmen that Clara’s workshop wouldn’t get bigger, he also put her in charge of lamp making. She designed nearly 60 intricate lamps, for which Louis Tiffany received credit until Clara’s letters to her sisters and mother describing her work were discovered after her and Tiffany’s deaths. Saturated colors and bold black outlines reflect the Tiffany glass aesthetic in the pen-and-ink and gouache illustrations.

The untold story of Clara Driscoll, a nature lover with the mind of a creative innovator and the unsung genius who designed and engineered the iconic Tiffany lamp

Drawing inspiration from her childhood gardens, Clara Driscoll created designs for Louis C. Tiffany's stained glass windows. Clara had such a flare for glass that Tiffany put her in charge of a special workroom, staffed with women--called the Tiffany Girls. But Clara wanted more. She wanted to create a three-dimensional work that would make light bloom. So she figured out how to engineer a lamp--how to shape and bend glass and light it so that her designs sprung to colorful, vivid life.

Today, we all recognize Tiffany lamps, but we almost forgot the woman who created them. Extensive back matter features more information about Clara Driscoll, her letters, and her design and manufacturing process, as well as bibliography and sources.