American Commemorative Art and the Sacralization of Memory

Note: this is part one of a two-day event

American Commemorative Art and the Sacralization of Memory  

The signature event for Eternal Light will examine the development of America’s culture of commemorative practices particularly as it relates to war. The world’s foremost specialist on World War I, Dr. Jay Winter of Yale University, will examine the vital importance of war memorials and the nation’s desire and need to memorialize, remember, and heal. Dr. Winter’s presentation will be followed by noted Louis Comfort Tiffany scholar, and exhibition catalogue contributor Dr. Elizabeth De Rosa, who will examine how the Tiffany firms, in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, were at the forefront of establishing the appropriate way to commemorate war and the loss of life. Sunday provides an extraordinary opportunity to explore of one of Tiffany’s most remarkable war memorial commissions, The Levere Memorial Temple in Evanston, Illinois, with these two renowned experts.

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On September 7, the Richard H. Driehaus Museum will open Eternal Light: The Sacred Stained-Glass Windows of Louis Comfort Tiffany, an exhibition featuring 11 outstanding, ecclesiastical stained-glass windows made by Louis Comfort Tiffany and his workshop artisans between 1880 and 1925. The exhibition captures the artistic range and intricacy of Tiffany’s output, while drawing particular attention to his religiously-themed works as important signifiers of America’s rapidly shifting social, economic, and religious landscape at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.