Writings about Chihuly

Leslie Jackson Chihuly

2017

For more than half a century, Dale Chihuly has devoted his boundless energy and sharp intelligence to the implementation of a singular artistic vision in an ever-expanding array of media. His imagination—and lifelong engagement with color and…

Nathan Kernan

2013

Drawing holds a unique place in the art of Dale Chihuly. What may have begun for him as a pragmatic tool of communication in response to particular circumstances in the studio became and has remained much more than that: an ongoing process of…

Mark McDonnell

2011

Much has been written about Dale Chihuly as a child of the Pacific Northwest. Throughout his childhood, Chihuly was touched by nature. He grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Tacoma, Washington, in a house distinguished by his mother’s…

Timothy Anglin Burgard

2008

One can only wonder what kind of genius thought of blowing human breath down a metal tube, forming a bubble inside a molten blob of glass. And to think that this molten blob of glass is made only of silica or sand, the most common material …

Barbara Rose

2008

Dale Chihuly’s new series of works in black glass continues his investigations into the potential of glass, which he has expanded to include spectacular installations and mammoth public sculptures. This time, however, rather than emphasizing the…

Peter Fischer

2005

The story of Mille Fiori, written by the American artist in glass, Dale Chihuly, begins with sand and fire. Like an alchemist, he brings these elements together and transforms them into glass. For a glass-blower, there is nothing…

Jennifer H. Opie

2002

Dale Chihuly arrived in Venice in 1968 as the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and already a talented, practicing glassblower. On acquiring the fellowship, Chihuly wrote to several hundred glassworks on Murano. Only one responded positively.…

Tina Oldknow

1997

The first Chihuly Persians were made in 1986. An eccentric collection of brightly colored and unusually shaped objects - primarily small bottles and vessels - the earliest Persians looked “archaeological” to…

Tina Oldknow

1996

In September 1996, Dale Chihuly successfully concluded his monumental project, Chihuly Over Venice, with the installation of fourteen immense glass Chandeliers throughout the fabled city of Venice. Some Chandeliers were…

Joan Seeman Robinson

1995

There's a pool in Dale Chihuly’s studio in Seattle in which lies submerged, a great bed of Seaform sculptures. Lighted from below, their chromatic luminosity irradiates the water, granting it a plenitude as if one were looking into the…

Linda Norden

1994

Anyone at all familiar with Dale Chihuly’s work knows that the individual glass objects he creates represent only isolated moments in a complex creative continuum. Like stills or out-takes from an endless film loop, a given Basket or…

Robert Hobbs

1993

Derived from the Latin macula, the Italian word “macchia” connotes simply a stain or a spot, but it has a much richer range of meaning. Since the Renaissance, macchia has been associated with a sketchy way of applying the initial color to a…

Patterson Sims

1992

Two cities, Seattle, Washington, and Venice, Italy best exemplify the personal and artistic character of Dale Chihuly. They represent the polar opposites of his complex and energetic spirit: love of nature and concentration on basic necessities…