November 9, 2021 through September 3, 2023
The Stebbins Collection: A Gift for the Morse Museum introduced to the public for the first time a previously held private collection of seventy works of art by fifty-three artists. From paintings and sculpture to works on paper, the Stebbins Collection includes American masters from Thomas Moran (1837–1926) and Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) to Thomas Eakins (1844–1916) and Fidelia Bridges (1834–1923). Assembled over the course of fifty-five years, the Stebbins Collection features artists of both great renown as well as many who have been largely forgotten.
March 12, 2021 through October 11, 2022
Chinese blue and white porcelain was among many Asian sources of inspiration for European and American artists and designers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today, these precious Asian ceramic pieces are still avidly collected and enjoy a large popular audience.
March 3, 2020 through October 3, 2021
Portraiture in America in the latter half of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century took on a different purpose. Rather than romantic portrayals of royals and magnates, paintings of people who commissioned portraits showed qualities beyond the physical attributes of their subjects. John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Charles Hawthorne (1872–1930), and Cecilia Beaux (1855–1942) were portraitists that let the paint express the individual’s character and who did not simply reproduce the subject’s likeness on canvas. Portraits from the Morse Museum’s American painting collection are part of its repository of American art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
October 15, 2019 through February 13, 2021
This exhibition explores the Morse Museum’s expansive collection of archival materials from Louis Comfort Tiffany’s businesses, project studies, and personal life, bridging the gap between artistic and studio processes and completed works of art. Through sample panels, sketches, and documents in the Museum’s collection, the exhibit reveals Tiffany’s work in incredible detail.
February 12, 2019 through February 13, 2021
Charles Hosmer Morse (1833–1921), the industrialist and philanthropist for whom the Museum is named, began wintering in Winter Park in the mid-1880s. He purchased Osceola Lodge, built in 1886, in 1904 and transformed the house into a modern residence fitted with the latest and best furnishings in the Arts and Crafts style. This vignette includes some of the objects from the house.
October 16, 2018 through October 3, 2021
Originating in England, where leading proponents included William Morris (1834–96), the Arts and Crafts movement was a response to the Industrial Revolution. Its adherents set out to reform the look of the everyday visual environment that had become, in their view, corrupted by the ugliness of machine production. Not only did factories produce badly designed goods but in reducing human beings to cogs in wheels, they destroyed dignity of labor. Arts and Crafts artists and designers set out to restore beauty and integrity to domestic products like dishes and flatware, vases and pitchers, chairs and tables as well as interior design and architecture itself. Furthermore, through handicraft, they aimed to revive the pride of the artisan. Works in this gallery, all selected from the Morse collection, illustrate the simple beauty of the objects created by American art potteries, furniture makers, metalworkers, and others who took up the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement.
October 16, 2018 through October 3, 2021
In the late nineteenth century, American-made art pottery was internationally recognized for its innovation, quality, and beauty. In this major exhibition, the Museum turns a spotlight on America’s art pottery pioneers in Cincinnati, many of whom were women.
February 13, 2018 through July 8, 2018
The largest existing painting by American artist Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) will be exhibited at the Morse through a special loan of the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum in Vermont. Bierstadt, a German-American artist, was lauded for grandiose landscape paintings, particularly those that captured the newly accessible American West. His work represented the maturation of the great American landscape tradition, and this painting of the Yosemite Valley is considered his crowning achievement. The painting will be installed at the Morse in the winter following conservation in Miami and will be on view through early July. Charles Hosmer Morse, the industrialist and philanthropist for whom the Morse is named, is a native of St. Johnsbury. The Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation made a significant contribution toward the Athenaeum’s Domes Project.
January 16, 2018 through January 27, 2019
Many American painters of the late 19th century withdrew from cities to the pristine beauty of forests, rivers, and rural life. In this exhibition, the Morse presents a selection of landscape paintings from its collection that illustrate the affinity between the ideas of the French Barbizon School (1830–1870) and American painting at the turn of the 20th century. Objects on view will include landscapes by Otto Heinigke (1850–1915), Lockwood de Forest (1850–1932), and George Inness (1825–1894). The show complements the exhibition Towards Impressionism: Landscape Painting from Corot to Monet at the Cornell Fine Arts Museum (January 20–April 8) at Rollins College.
October 17, 2017 through September 22, 2019
Although best known for his achievements in the decorative arts, particularly glass, Louis Comfort Tiffany was an active painter and photographer throughout his life. This exhibition draws on the Museum’s collection of Tiffany’s less well known two-dimensional works, examples that are poetic in character—sometimes joyous, sometimes elegiac. Tiffany, who traveled broadly, was unceasingly engaged with his visual environment, recording his impressions with camera, brush, and pen. While Tiffany’s famous works in glass dazzle the eye, his paintings and photographs provide an intimate portrait of a man moved by the simple beauty of everyday life—farm scenes, children playing in the surf, and boats on the Hudson River.
October 17, 2017 through September 22, 2019
Inspired by the aesthetic vision of Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) and with his careful guidance, talented designers and artisans produced some of the most stunning and innovative decorative objects of his and our own time. Organized from the Morse collection, this exhibition presents some of the designs for the diverse objects—including lamps, windows, vases, and even baptismal fonts—born of this complex and enterprising organization. The show will include objects, sketches, drawings, and photographs that reveal something of the creative process at Tiffany’s firm.
October 18, 2016 through September 30, 2018
The Morse Museum opened its doors 75 years ago on February 17, 1942, to provide the community with an opportunity to make art a part of their daily lives. The Morse was founded by Jeannette McKean (1909–89), granddaughter of Chicago industrialist and Winter Park philanthropist Charles Hosmer Morse, and led for nearly a half century by Hugh McKean (1908–95), an artist, art professor, and for 18 years president of Rollins College. Our 75th anniversary is an occasion to reaffirm the McKeans’ vision for the Museum’s role in the community and to celebrate the values that have steered the institution since its inception and which make it a distinctive benefaction.
October 18, 2016 through January 27, 2019
A look at Hugh F. McKean’s pre-digital educational exhibit designed to encourage a long, thoughtful look at Thomas Sully’s 1871 canvas, Study of the Queen Victoria.
February 9, 2016 through September 25, 2016
The Spoon Collectors, a new vignette, will showcase the fascinating assortment of souvenir spoons collected by the Charles Hosmer Morse and Hugh F. McKean families. Drawn from a collection of more than 550 spoons, the selection on view will be organized by subjects—from forts to flowers and saints to skylines— the icons of particular places and events that marked the miles and smiles of a traveler’s journey. A booming business for silver makers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these objects were treasured by the Morses and McKeans for their charm and memories—the same reasons souvenirs have been so collected throughout history.
October 20, 2015 through December 31, 2017
Louis Comfort Tiffany loved daffodils—a flower that heralds spring and is rich in symbolic meaning. Not only did he cultivate them and plant them prominently at his Long Island country estate, Laurelton Hall, he created his own versions in glass for windows, lamps, and column capitals. From the shape of its base to the decoration of its leaded-glass shade, the Morse Museum’s beautiful Daffodil lamp, c. 1899 to 1905, from Tiffany Studios well rewards a careful and thorough examination. Through objects and explanatory wall panels, this exhibition presents an in-depth study of the lamp, from its inspiration and significance to its design and production.
February 10, 2015 through January 24, 2016
The Museum debuts a selection from Harry C. Sigman’s 2014 gift of 86 objects to the Morse. The donation includes art glass, pottery, metalwork, and furniture. The finely crafted objects on view can be appreciated both individually and in the context of the Museum’s entire collection.
February 10, 2015 through October 1, 2017
In 1905 Elizabeth Owens Morse, the daughter of Charles Hosmer Morse and Martha Owens Morse, married Richard Genius. The Morse presents a representative group of the lovely gifts that survive from the Morse-Genius wedding, including Tiffany art glass, Rookwood pottery, and Gorham silver.
October 29, 2013 through January 18, 2015
The charming characters and whimsical prose of late 19th-century children’s literature found their source in a grander plan to instill beauty from the earliest years. This exhibition focuses on three authors and illustrators noted for their pioneering contributions to children’s literature: Kate Greenaway (1846–1901), Mary Dow Brine (1836–1925), and Eulalie Osgood Grover (1873–1958). Their work, in the context of the period, can be seen as part of the Aesthetic movement (1870–90), a crusade that sought to infuse all objects with beauty and, in turn, elevate the quality of life of all who surrounded themselves with it.
February 12, 2013 through September 25, 2016
In French, Art Nouveau literally means “new art,” and at the turn of the 20th century, this new art looked different, felt different, and reflected different values and ideas. Through more than 100 objects from the Museum’s collection, this exhibition explores the interrelated elements that define this style so well known for its lively line and organic form. The exhibition—featuring furniture, architectural ornaments, lamps, jewelry, ceramics, and art glass from more than 50 makers, designers, and artists working across nine countries—is organized into groups that illustrate such dominant Art Nouveau themes as nature, female form, and metamorphosis.
February 12, 2013 through January 29, 2017
“Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,” William Morris declared in 1880. Morris (1834–96) was a leader of the Arts and Crafts movement, which originated in Britain in the late nineteenth century and soon spread to America. This gallery highlights Arts and Crafts objects from the Museum’s collection.
February 12, 2013 through January 11, 2015
Developed in the late 19th century and ubiquitous until the 1970s, fountain pens—the kind filled from a bottle of ink—were ingenious and often beautifully designed and handcrafted. This exhibit of about 100 American writing instruments manufactured between 1875 and 1975 shows many of the major technological and design innovations made through the years by such great names of the industry as Parker, L.E. Waterman, Wahl-Eversharp, and W.A. Sheaffer.
October 23, 2012 through September 27, 2015
The Wreck, an 1880 oil painting by American artist and decorator Lockwood de Forest (1850–1932), depicts five Bedouins riding their camels across a distant horizon and in the foreground, the skeletal remains of a camel—the wreck of the painting’s title. A recent bequest from the estate of de Forest’s great-granddaughter, this 36-by-48-inch Orientalist picture is on view for the first time after extensive conservation. Metaphorically, the theme of the work is life and death and the basic struggle of human existence. The exhibition includes other de Forest oil studies from the collection and photo-and-essay panels designed to help the viewer develop a full appreciation of the painting’s creation, context, and symbolism.
October 23, 2012 through January 6, 2013
This informal installation of recent acquisitions shows how the Morse Museum’s collection continues to evolve. Highlights include Blue Magnolia and Zephyr Lily pottery from Roseville, a late 19th-century oil painting, a 1908 gold wristwatch from Tiffany & Co., and blown-glass vases from the family of Arthur J. Nash (1849–1934), who Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933) hired to develop his signature glass.
February 14, 2012 through October 20, 2013
Never before exhibited, this selection from the Museum’s collection of more than 30 watercolors by Otto Heinigke (1850–1915) includes scenes ranging from Middle-Atlantic farms and forests to ocean and river shorelines. Heinigke was a first-generation American and a principal in the prominent Brooklyn stained-glass firm Heinigke and Bowen.
October 18, 2011 through October 7, 2012
Morse Museum vignettes—a tradition established by Museum founder Jeannette Genius McKean—are themed interior scenes developed from objects in the collection. The Morse will display about three dozen new acquisitions of Roseville ceramic objects representing the rich colors and beloved patterns that made the pottery so popular in its era.
August 19, 2010 through October 9, 2011
This vignette, adapted from a 1974 original that Jeannette Genius McKean (1909–89) installed at Opera Gala Guild’s Decorator Show House in the historic Grace Phillips Johnson house in College Park.
July 23, 2010 through January 15, 2012
The Morse Museum has recently completed an extensive multi-year conservation effort to stabilize the prints and glass-plate negatives in our Tiffany Studios Study Photograph Collection and produce exhibit-quality images from them. Among these archival images are a unique series of photographs that document important commissions and product offerings from Tiffany Studios’ Ecclesiastical Department.
October 20, 2009 through July 4, 2010
Although Louis Comfort Tiffany ‘s name is most often associated with his work in the medium of glass, he established himself first as a painter and continued to paint throughout his lifetime. Drawing from works in the Morse collection, this new installation provides a view of Tiffany paintings in the context of artists who he believed in some way shared his commitment to beauty. The exhibit includes works by Tiffany alongside those of contemporaries such as Samuel Colman, Elihu Vedder, Charles Hawthorne, and Cecilia Beaux.
October 20, 2009 through August 8, 2010
This Morse vignette features a number of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany, John La Farge, Rookwood, and others that reflect the transforming influence of Japan on late 19th- and early 20th-century Western art. Morse Museum vignettes—a tradition established by Jeannette Genius McKean, the Museum’s founder—are themed interior scenes developed from objects in the collection.
February 17, 2009 through January 13, 2013
The Museum’s exhibition of American Arts and Crafts furnishings and decorative art—which opened February 17, 2009—illustrates the origins of the movement in Great Britain and shows, through a selection of examples from the Morse collection, how the Arts and Crafts movement manifested itself in the United States, especially in the Northeast and Midwest.
January 24, 2009 through February 23, 2020
This recently updated gallery of primarily American paintings features more than 20 works representing a variety of late 19th-century styles, including portraiture, genre scenes, and landscapes.
November 3, 2008 through September 7, 2014
The first three galleries at the Morse have been installed with more than a hundred objects representing the remarkable diversity of work by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The installation includes 15 leaded-glass windows, as well as more than a hundred examples of Tiffany art glass, metalwork, lamps, and pottery.
October 14, 2008 through October 4, 2009
The Museum’s vignette includes more than five dozen examples of American-made glass tableware from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including hand-cut luxury glass—also known as brilliant-cut glass—and the very popular Three Face pattern glassware produced by George Duncan & Sons of Pittsburgh. In this era, beginning with prizes won at the Centennial Exposition in 1876, American glassware was celebrated for its superiority in craftsmanship and design.
October 14, 2008 through June 7, 2009
The Museum was recently fortunate to acquire a group of 27 oil studies by landscape painter Lockwood de Forest (1850–1932). Dating from 1874 to 1911, these beautiful plein air sketches are being exhibited for the first time in this installation. De Forest was also a partner in Louis Tiffany’s early decorating businesses. He organized a woodcarving workshop in India and functioned as an importer of various components particularly important to Tiffany’s interiors.
November 6, 2007 through January 24, 2011
This exhibition examines Tiffany’s “quest of beauty” through five phases of his life and a selection of about 100 objects. These include leaded-glass windows and blown-glass vases created by the artist for exhibition, personal objects Tiffany owned, photographs of his long-lost interior designs, as well as various records and awards.
August 15, 2007 through September 28, 2008
An installation of about two dozen American and European decorative objects, this traditional Morse vignette reflects Western fascination with the art and design of the Orient during the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries.
March 7, 2007 through August 5, 2007
Hugh and Jeannette McKean, both artists themselves, collected a variety of Florida art and objets d’art. This vignette features a fictional gallery installed with a selection of those works, including paintings by Lois Bartlett Tracy, Lucien Harris III, Andre Smith, and the African-American artists now known as “The Highwaymen.”
January 30, 2007 through October 14, 2007
This exhibition marks the first major showing of the strong and charming group of books, prints, and drawings collected by Hugh and Jeannette McKean. From an 1844 edition of Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit to a 1941 lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton, the installation features work by some of the finest artists and illustrators of the era.
November 21, 2006 through May 20, 2007
More than 100 Tiffany windows, architectural ornaments and other objects from the Morse Museum’s collection of works from Tiffany’s Long Island estate are being shown alongside works from both private and public collections. The exhibition is organized by the Metropolitan in collaboration with the Morse.
March 7, 2006 through September 11, 2006
A new acquisition, this church pulpit designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1907 for the South Presbyterian Church in Syracuse, New York, is solid oak inlaid with blue, green, and pearl-white glass mosaics. Also on view are two lancet windows from the Tiffany-decorated church.
October 11, 2005 through August 31, 2007
Marking the Museum’s tenth anniversary at its Park Avenue location, this exhibition showcases works from the Louis Comfort Tiffany collection that the Museum has rarely if ever exhibited. These include a dozen leaded-glass windows and 85 other varied objects—fancy desk sets, bronzed pottery, art glass, and more.
March 18, 2005 through September 16, 2018
From the 1870s to World War I, American designers focused their talents on producing pottery that rivaled any contemporaneous pottery in the world in beauty, quality, and variety.
February 8, 2005 through January 7, 2007
This display of more than 100 examples of vases, tableware, and mosaic tiles from the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany is the Morse Museum’s most comprehensive exhibition ever of its collection of Tiffany art glass.
October 5, 2004 through March 3, 2006
From 1908 to about 1918, mass-produced, pressed-glass objects with brilliantly colored iridescent surfaces were wildly popular throughout the world. This installation features a selection of more than 35 examples from the primary American manufacturers.
February 3, 2004 through January 16, 2005
Marking the 100th anniversary of the introduction of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s art pottery, this exhibition illustrates influences and sources of Tiffany’s pottery as well as its highly developed sculptural nature. It features 66 examples of Tiffany ceramics, including more than a dozen new acquisitions made with the exhibition in mind.
February 4, 2003 through January 9, 2005
Louis Comfort Tiffany’s unique vision for lighting secured his broadest popularity a hundred years ago and helps continue his celebrity today. The exhibition showcases more than 40 Tiffany lamps, including leaded, blown, and molded glass types, award-winning designs, and personal creations for his country estate.
October 15, 2002 through September 28, 2003
This installation showcases 22 hats from the Morse collection that reveal the tastes of three women over the span of some 70 years. The vignette includes bonnets, cloches, and flowery straws bearing labels from Chicago, New York, and Paris-all expressing the best of the milliner’s art.
February 13, 2001 through June 11, 2001
It is a little-known fact that Louis Comfort Tiffany explored the medium of photography both for its practical benefits and its potential as an art form. This exhibition of 27 photographs from our collection, including such varied subjects as landscapes and boats, is the first known exhibition of Tiffany’s photographs.
November 28, 2000 through May 13, 2001
In his charming sculptures of daily life, John Rogers (1829–1904) made one of the earliest efforts to fashion a distinct image of Americans. The 31 sculptures on view, draw from literature such as Romeo and Juliet, and experiences such as a young couple’s visit to the parson, to show Rogers’ broadly popular subject matter.