Alice Carmen Gouvy (c.1870-75 - March 27, 1924) was a designer at Tiffany Studios and worked closely with Clara Driscoll, the head of the Women's Glass Cutting Department.

Early life and education

Born in Cleveland, Alice Carmen Gouvy was the daughter of Charles P. And Helen L. Gouvy. She graduated from the Cleveland School of Art in 1894. After moving to

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, she shared an apartment with Tiffany Studios designer Clara Driscoll. She studied at the Art Students League from 1896 to 1898. In 1898, she began working at Tiffany studios. She became Driscoll's most trusted assistant, and remained a close friend. The two shared a summer cottage at Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

Career

Gouvy began working at Tiffany Studios in the fall of 1898. That year,

Louis C. Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouvea ...

undertook his first experiments with enameling on metals at the Stourbridge Glass Co. facility. Tiffany hired additional staff to create chemicals for the new department. Gouvy was hired to work on formulas and new designs. The department was originally set up in a small laboratory in Tiffany's mansion at 72nd Street and Madison Avenue, and moved to the glass shop at Corona in 1903. By 1900, Gouvy also worked in the Tiffany Studios pottery department and designed bronze objects. In early 1907, Gouvy left Tiffany Studios and returned to Cleveland to work as a schoolteacher while caring for her mother.

Work

The works of Tiffany's artists were rarely identified by name. Gouvy is known to have helped Clara Driscoll and Agnes Northrop to design some of Tiffany's iconic pieces, including the ''Flying Fish'' shade, the ''Deep Sea'' base, and the ''Dragonfly'' lamp. Her sketches are also known to have inspired Tiffany blown glass vases with petal shapes and motifs reminiscent of peonies and marigolds. Many of her works, including ''Dandelion Plant 95'', are inspired by nature.

Major exhibitions

Eight watercolor sketches from Tiffany Furnaces around 1902, painstakingly restored, revealed the signatures of Alice Gouvy and Lillian Palmié. They became the basis for an exhibit at the Rakow Research Library of the Corning Museum of Glass, ''Tiffany Treasures: Design Drawings by Alice Gouvy and Lillian Palmié'', held November 1, 2009 to April 30, 2010. Gouvy's drawings have been described as "lively plant portraits that could be translated to a three-dimensional medium." Works by Gouvy were also included in the

New York Historical Society The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. ...

's traveling exhibition ''A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls'' which appeared in Munich, Germany and

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in 2010-2011.

Public collections

Her works are included in collections such as the Corning Museum of Glass, the

Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, a museum noted for its ''art nouveau'' collection, houses the most comprehensive collection of the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany found anywhere, a major collection of American art pottery, and f ...

and the

Chrysler Museum of Art The Chrysler Museum of Art is an art museum on the border between downtown and the Ghent district of Norfolk, Virginia. The museum was founded in 1933 as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences. In 1971, automotive heir, Walter P. Chrysler Jr. ...

. Ephemera relating to her work is held in the Art and Artist Files collection at the Smithsonian Libraries. Thistle watercolor

References

External links

Tiffany Treasures: Design Drawings by Alice Gouvy and Lillian Palmié
exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass, November 1, 2009 to April 30, 2010
Watercolors from Louis Comfort Tiffany's "Little Arcadia"
exhibition at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, opened March 24, 2021 (ongoing)