Dale Chihuly is the most famous and influential artist working in glass today. A career-spanning biographical essay by curator Timothy Anglin Burgard and stunning colour photography of the works will captivate Chihuly's myriad fans - both old and new.
For more than 30 years the author has dazzled the public with his flamboyant creations. His blown glass works are on display in more than 180 museums around the world. This volume focuses on his most imposing creations.
This book chronicles four decades of Dale Chihuly's work on paper, a dynamic collection that is a fascinating study of variety. Many of the drawings are drenched in thick, bold layers of colour. Others are more elusive -- just a hint of form sketched with a fistful of pencils or a confidently manipulated charcoal. Over the years his style has evolved, becoming more abstract and more elaborate, and his drawings, in some cases, have become much larger. But there are no rules; a technique that Chihuly favoured a decade before may resurface again. The excitement of Chihuly's work on paper is in its unpredictability, and that in two dimensions Chihuly is free to let his grandest schemes come to fruition. Above all, Chihuly's work on paper revels in the monumental creativity that is essentially Chihuly.
"Dale Chihuly's lively, playful drawings and letters, collected in this volume, suggest (among other things) that we may have undervalued the fax transmission, which is how many of these letters and drawings were sent: on a machine that, for many people, has already gone the way of the flip phone." -From the intro by Francine Prose
Every time I visited the Citadel, I would imagine what I could do to enhance its glory and bring attention to its soul, says artist Dale Chihuly of his recent project in Jerusalem. In July 1999, Chihuly's grandest and most ambitious undertaking opened at the Citadel, and will remain there for a year. Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem 2000 serves as a focal point for the city's millennium celebration. This volume highlights 14 major installations commissioned by the Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem. The exhibition is made up of more than 10,000 pieces of glass, blown in France, Japan, the Czech Republic, Finland, Israel, and the United States. Within the walls of the Citadel, Chihuly unexpectedly married ancient and modern forms, animating the stone architecture with glass. Mediterranean sunlight illuminates the Blue Tower, the red and yellow Spears, the Moon, and the Crystal Mountain. Chihuly has transformed the Citadel, once a defensive fortress, into a garden of colour and celebration. Commentary by William Warmus.
The Taos Pueblo Exhibition is the beginning of an exploration of the wonders of glass art. We began this trail of beauty with a guide, Dale Chihuly, who made this art his life, say the leaders of the Taos Pueblo. Dale Chihuly made his first trip to the Southwest in 1974. A year later, he was deeply affected by a museum collection of Navajo Blankets and began to experiment with simple, cylindrical forms, which became the Navajo Blanket Cylinders. Boasting ingeniously applied patterns of colourful glass threads, the series became an important milestone from which his art evolved. The most obvious influence of this early series is visible in the Soft Cylinders, more irregularly shaped and elaborately decorated than their predecessors. In another opportune encounter, Chihuly happened upon a pile of old Northwest Coast Indian hand-woven baskets that inspired him toward one of his most recognisable and innovative glass series, the Baskets. Thin-walled and nested inside each other, the Basket series exemplifies Chihuly's signature organic, free-form style.This vellum-covered book tells the visual story of Chihuly's Native American influences, coming full circle with the Taos Pueblo Exhibition. Includes the inspiring essay, 'Dale Chihuly and the Indian Connection' by Lloyd Kiva New, President of the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Internationally acclaimed artist Dale Chihuly's site-specific installations in the form of architectural commissions and exhibitions Forty years of Dale Chihuly's spectacular site-specific glass installations are captured in this large-format publication examining architectural commissions, temporary art installations, and museum exhibitions around the world. Chihuly's installations on walls, windows, ceilings, stairways, courtyards, and fountains are closely examined. Chihuly and Architecture explores entire rooms and galleries, glasshouses and castles, and travels from the canals of Venice to the Citadel in the Old City of Jerusalem, providing rare insight into Chihuly's inspiration and global footprint.
"Trade blankets, often called "Pendletons" after their best-known manufacturer, were woven in hundreds of combinations of colors and designs by woolen mills. Chihuly, who had studied weaving and textiles, became intrigued by the blankets' vibrant beauty and began collecting them. Included in this collection are blankets not only from Pendleton Woolen Mills, but also from other manufacturers, such as J. Capps and Sons, Buell Manufacturing Company, Racine Woolen Mills, and Oregon City Woolen Mills. Also included in this volume are selections of Chihuly's series of Blanket Cylinders. This series features an innovative technique: threads of colored glass are fused into a drawing of a blanket design, then picked up on the surface of hot cylinders, resulting in an image that vividly evokes a blanket's unique texture, pattern, and colors. Chihuly's Pendletons has 172 full-color reproductions, including blankets from the artist's private collection, historical photographs, and the distinguished Blanket Cylinders series. The volume also features an essay by Chihuly on his attraction to the blankets and his creative process in developing the series"-- Jacket.
This book presents the most flamboyant and whimsical of all Chihuly's series. The voluptuous glass pieces, shown in full-colour, were inspired by Art Deco Venetian glass during Chihuly's Fullbright scholarship in Venice. With collaboration between Chihuly and glass master Lino Tagliapietra, the series evolved over a period of only seven blowing sessions. Though at their core, the Venetians are vessels of some sort, they explode outward when wrapped with spiralling coils, leaves, feathers, and claws in startling colour combinations. Chihuly chronicles the evolution of the series in his reflective essay included in this volume. His bold and colourful drawings illustrate how the artist guided his team to make these pieces. This oversized book offers a breathtaking view of Chihuly's Venetians, which, more than any other of his series, embody personality and individual character. This book begins with an essay by Ron Glowen.
"Drawing on the museum's historic Renaissance collections and expertise, the book also explores the development of the Venetian glass workshop and Chihuly's enormous influence in introducing it and Venetian glassmakers to the United States. It also includes a brief resume of his career and an assessment of his art and its significance."--BOOK JACKET.