The Allentown Art Museum is running a Tiffany Windows campaign in order to raise funds to acquire two extraordinary stained-glass windows by renowned Tiffany Studios of New York. The monumental windows, dating from the early twentieth century, currently reside in the United Presbyterian Church in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Your donation will support the acquisition, conservation, and installation of these exquisite examples of American decorative art. It also ensures their preservation so that generations to come can enjoy them.
Detail of the Sarah Ann Derr memorial window, bottom
Tiffany Studios was founded by Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose father created the iconic jewelry company Tiffany & Co. Branching off from his father’s business, Louis quickly became a pioneer of a distinctly American version of stained glass, more accurately known as leaded glass, which he incorporated into windows, lamps, and interior décor beginning in the late nineteenth century.
Agnes Northrop
Scholars attribute the design of the windows to be acquired to Tiffany Studios lead designer Agnes Northrop (1857-1953). Northrop collaborated with Louis Tiffany in pioneering landscapes as a subject for memorial windows. Many of her memorial designs used rivers as a metaphor for the passage of life. Additionally, she used sunrise and sunset as symbols of birth and death. One of the two windows portrays a scene of waning light that suggests the tranquility of a setting sun.
The windows are exemplary of Northrop’s signature style and transcendent achievements in early twentieth century American decorative art, created by a female artist at the height of her creative powers.
The acquisition fees received by Pottsville’s United Presbyterian Church will provide the capital needed to upgrade the church’s sorely outdated heating system. The church also will use a portion of the funds to maintain and expand a number of social programs: a homeless shelter, a food bank, a preschool, and a mother’s support group. These are key programs in Schuylkill County, one of the most impoverished counties in Pennsylvania.