Matt Foss, director
One of my favorite artworks in the Museum’s collection is the oil painting The First Fall Day. Painted in 1870, it is an exquisite work that captures everything we love about autumn. With rolling hills punctuated by warm fall colors, barren trees, and a flock of birds leading the eye into the beautiful pink and blue-hued sky, it’s colorful yet subtle, expertly designed to capture the mood of our current season when almost the whole day seems to be twilight.
It’s not a shock the painting is well-composed and effective in evoking a feeling. It’s the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, the long admired, respected, and copied, creative force behind the famed Tiffany Studios, known internationally for their color-infused glass and lamps. Before L.C. Tiffany was known as a pioneer in the decorative arts, he studied as a painter in the tradition of the Hudson River School. Although many of his paintings focus on scenes from the Middle East (where he traveled extensively in the 1870s), The First Fall Day is a beautiful American study, capturing what is certainly a scene in upstate New York, but really could be anywhere with gentle slopes and deciduous trees.
Incredibly enough, I think it is safe to say that Louis Comfort Tiffany will be the most represented artist at the Woodson Art Museum in 2025-2026. With The First Fall Day now on view in Cultivating Beauty: 25 Years of Nancy Woodson Spire Foundation Acquisitions, assistant director and collections curator Amalia Wojciechowski set the stage for what is coming next year. From January 17 to May 3, the Woodson will host Tiffany or Ti-phony? A Story of Desire on loan from The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in Queens, New York. Featuring forty-five Tiffany lamps from The Neustadt, Tiffany or Ti-phony? will showcase the never-ending allure of the color-infused glass pioneered by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios, and show how these beautiful decorative objects were also functional, but also how they entered American pop culture.
While we are actively preparing for Tiffany or Ti-phony? to debut at the Woodson in January, there is still plenty of time to catch Tiffany’s current work in Cultivating Beauty capturing the quintessence of autumn, even though we are sadly closer to the last fall day rather than The First Fall Day.
