Dale Chihuly
American, born 1941Paris Blue Persian Set with Red Lip Wraps, 1992
Not on view
Blown glass
Dimensions26 × 42 × 27 in. (66 × 106.7 × 68.6 cm)
Museum Purchase, 1992.29
These vibrant, blown glass objects are made by Dale Chihuly, arguably the most well-known American glass artist. While in school he traveled to Venice, Italy, to observe the techniques of the great Venetian masters. He witnessed a team approach to glassblowing that he did not see practiced by many American artists. He brought the idea back to the United States and incorporated it into the programs at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State. Co-Founded by Chihuly, Pilchuck has become one of the premier glass educational facilities in the world. Many artists in this collection studied under Chihuly and other instructors, and some became teachers themselves. Chihuly has long been concerned with the ways fire, gravity, and centrifugal force can be used to stretch and blow glass to its edge. He experimented with ribbed molds and realized that if he blew the glass into the mold before working into the final shape they had more strength. You can still see some of the lines left by the ribbed mold in this sculpture. Works like this, from his Persian series, are an exploration of form, shape, and color—a celebration of wild asymmetry and swirling pattern.
