The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art opens its new season in October with two new exhibitions that highlight new acquisitions and another that provides fresh perspective on the glassmaking techniques at Tiffany Studios.

One of the most important new additions to the Museum’s collection is Lockwood de Forest’s oil painting, The Wreck, c. 1880—a recent bequest from the estate of de Forest’s great-granddaughter. This large Orientalist desert scene is the subject of a Morse focus exhibition opening October 23. The 36-by-48 inch painting 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. Metaphorically, the theme of the work is life and death and the basic struggle of human existence. The painting, on view for the first time after extensive conservation, will be accompanied by other de Forest oil studies in the collection and wall panels designed to help the viewer develop a full appreciation of this powerful painting, its context, and symbolism. De Forest (1850–1932), a friend and business partner of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s, was an importer and decorator as well as a fine and successful painter.

Also on October 23, the Morse will open an informal installation of other recent acquisitions, all of which like The Wreck, show how the Museum’s collection continues to develop. Highlights include Blue Magnolia pottery from Roseville, a late 19th-century oil painting attributed to James Henry Beard (1812–93), a 1908 gold wristwatch from Tiffany & Co., and blown-glass vases from Arthur J. Nash (1849–1934), who Louis Comfort Tiffany hired to develop his signature glass.

Finally, the Museum updates and relocates its popular teaching exhibit, Secrets of Tiffany Glassmaking. Through art objects, tools, photographs, and artifacts, the exhibition explains how the techniques and processes Tiffany’s designers and artisans used to create mosaics, blown-glass vases, and leaded-glass windows and lamps. The new installation includes additional archival images from Tiffany Studios, expanded information on the designers who worked for Tiffany, including Clara Driscoll—the artist who was the subject of a recent exhibition at the New-York Historical Museum and also of the best-selling novel, Clara and Mr. Tiffany. The updated show includes a video documenting the conservation of a Black-eyed Susan hanging lamp that was installed at Tiffany’s Laurelton Hall estate and is now on view in the new Tiffany wing.

The Morse Museum regularly changes and updates its exhibits to allow visitors to see more of the permanent collection and to provide additional information and deeper understanding of aspects of American art.

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