chihuly - Schantz Galleries

CHIHULY
VENETIANS
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CHIHULY VENETIANS
A Silver Anniversary Celebration of Dale Chihuly’s Venetian series 1988 - 2013
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Exquisite hours,
enveloped in light and silence,
to have known them once is to have known
a terrible standard of enjoyment.
Certain lovely mornings of May and June
come back with an ineffaceable fairness.
Venice isn’t smothered in flowers at this season,
in the manner of Florence and Rome;
but the sea and sky themselves seem to blossom and rustle.
Henry James(1)
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Venice will be simply glorious…
After the wet, the colors upon the walls
and their reflections in the canal are more gorgeous than ever
and with the sun shining upon the polished marble
mingled with the rich toned bricks and plaster,
this amazing city of palaces becomes really a fairyland
created, one would think, especially for the painter…
One could certainly spend years here
and never lose the freshness that pervades the place.
James Whistler(2)
Chihuly Venetians:
Sculptures and Drawings
by Donald Kuspit
Venice has long fascinated writers and painters, often because it’s a
city built on the sea, as though miraculously in no need of land, at other times
because of its amazing palaces, but what most of all makes it an aesthetic
fairyland for the visual artist are its colors—glorious and gorgeous, as Whistler
wrote, all the more so when they inform the sea and sky, making them seem
to blossom, as James wrote. Venice has always stood for Color, in contrast to
Florence, which has stood for Line, their difference epitomized by the difference
between Titian and Michelangelo. Chihuly also stands for Color, but, as the
Drawings and sculptures of his Venetian series indicate he is also a master of Line.
All of the works in the Venetian series blossom and rustle like flowering
plants—organic nature, at its most flourishing, is Chihuly’s inspiration--as though
composed of Venetian sea and sky. Many of the sculptures are sea blue, others
sea green, the green of the sea inseparable from the green of plants. Venetian
red also appears, along with orange and yellow, all suggestive of sunlight as it
changes during the day. Venice is famous for its light as well as color, the light
of the sky reflected in its water, giving it shimmering depth, an aura of infinite
plenitude, bespeaking its grand sky. Light is the essence of Chihuly’s sculpture,
absorbed, reflected, and distilled by the glass, a sort of immaterial material by
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reason of its molten transparency. Fluid as water, it can be given any and every
shape, as Chihuly seems to do. Glass is a metamorphic material, like paint, but
it projects in space, as paint does not, giving it greater presence. Lined up, the
organic sculptures, their colors seeming to materialize immaterial light, seem
like miniature palaces, complementing the grand palaces that line Venice’s
Grand Canal, and suggesting their organic character. The sculptures epitomize
the “exquisite hours” James spent in Venice, measuring up to the “terrible
standard of enjoyment” the city set for him. They are an aesthetic dream fulfilled,
conveying the wonder of color, light, water that make Venice an elemental as
well as ornamental city.
Sometimes the stem of the plant is a vase, flowers ornamentally growing
from it in convulsive abundance, some seemingly free form, others curved
outward, like bull’s horns, still others curved in on themselves. The flowers are
serene and forceful at the same time. Chihuly’s sculptures are baroquely lyrical,
and of major importance art historically, for they restore ornament to vitality,
making it once again aesthetically viable. “No ornament that possessed real
vitality was born during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,” the art historian
Hans Sedlmayr writes, in large part because of “the divorce between structure
and decoration,” but Chihuly’s Venetians re-unite them to new vital effect.
The geomorphic vase and the biomorphic flowers—structure and decoration-seem to grow into and out of each other, a dialectical interpenetration and
inseparability that is “the essence of ornament.” “Both as to its shape and color,
[ornament] grows naturally out of the body that carries it.”(3) The full-bodied vase
is nature at its most basic, the elaborate ornament encircling it indicating that it
is healthy and alive. “The spiritual relationship” between them, as Sedlmayr calls
it, defies “the inorganic” in “favor” in modernity.(4) “The…destruction of the earth,
the nourisher of man,” is done in the name of the inorganic, Sedlmayr notes,
suggesting that the growth of ornament signals that there is still hope for the
earth, that man is not yet completely “divorced” from nature.(5)
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Chihuly’s relationship with glass, emblematic of his relationship with
nature — glass is made of earth (it’s liquefied sand, as it were)—is the source of
his creativity. Creativity has been said to involve the union of opposites, which
is what Chihuly accomplishes when he unites color and line. Firing the molten
glass with which he sculpts also brings opposites together, if more riskily than in
his Drawings, in which color and line tend to be seamlessly one. Sometimes line
contains color, more often color becomes restless line, sometimes formlessly
growing, at others times delineating a plant in the process of growing. Becoming
and being seem to fuse in Chihuly’s Drawings and sculptures. The Drawings are
experimental studies for the sculptures, which have an experimental complexity
of their own, but they are the final products of the developmental process—the
wide-ranging curiosity and “trying outs”— evident in the Drawings. Chihuly’s
creativity is inexhaustible, as his amazing productivity shows, suggesting that he is
in perpetual process of self-integration, sustained by his instinctive energy, a gift
of nature. Changing liquid into a solid by firing the glass, he suggests his own fiery
and changeable nature.
Chihuly’s Drawings are indebted to Abstract Expressionism, and his
sculptures are indebted to Figurative Expressionism, that is, the expressionistic
representation of any three-dimensional object, human or non-human. Both
show the empathic engagement with nature that Wilhelm Worringer, in The
Gothic Ornament, argued was conveyed by ornament, suggesting that the
fusion of Empathy and Abstraction, to refer to Worringer’s other influential book,
makes ornament the most consummate art, universally appealing because it is
emotionally and intellectually engaging simultaneously. Chihuly’s art is grounded
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in systematic knowledge of natural structure as well as in natural feeling for
nature. His Venetian Drawings and sculptures are “wet reflections” of nature, to
play on Whistler’s words, that is, mirror images of nature, more or less expressively
malleable, as appearances tend to be when reflected in water, but also
“reflective” in the sense of being thoughtful. They are not mindlessly instinctive,
as expressionism is often said to be, but analytically precise studies of abstract
form, and as such have the quality of purely abstract art however evocative of
nature. They seem to dissect nature, showing it to be a tissue of colorful forms,
and re-combine them into a new, ever-fresh nature. Nowhere is decay evident
in Chihuly’s nature, however dark its colors sometimes become.
We are all born with a feeling for nature, being part of nature, and nature
has been studied, worshipped, and used since the beginning of human time. We
repress the emotions nature arouses in us, indicative of our deep attachment to
it, so that we can study it in a more detached scientific way, but the emotions
inevitably return. We court them in appreciative outings in nature, tamed in parks
or wild in virginal forests, like those in the Northwest where Chihuly grew up and
lives. They intensely and irrepressibly return in Chihuly’s Venetian series, the multifaced “artificial paradise” that Baudelaire said the best art is.
Donald Kuspit is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Art History and Philosophy at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook. His most recent book is “Psychodrama: Modern Art
as Group Therapy” (London: Ziggurat Press, 2011).
Dale Chihuly, 1991
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Drawings
"I want to emphasize how important the drawings came to be
in determining what I wanted to make. While the team and I
are working, I can walk over to the drawing board and begin to
draw. Being able to move back and forth between the pad and
the drawing table is what really allowed the series to move so
quickly...
Drawing is a fluid process, just like glassblowing."
— Chihuly
Dale Chihuly, 1995
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Venetian Drawing
22 x 30”
1988
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Venetian Drawing
30 x 22”
1989
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Venetian Drawing
30 x 22”
1990
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Venetian Drawing
42 x 30”
1993
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Venetian Drawing
42 x 30”
1993
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Venetian Drawing
22 x 30”
1995
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Venetian Drawing
30 x 22”
1998
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Venetian Drawing
30 x 22”
2007
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Venetian Drawing
30 x 22”
2008
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Piccolo Venetians
"The Venetians are such a technical tour de force you’re limited to
what you can do if you’re working at this huge scale. There's a
lot you can't do—it's just too big to handle. We were working so
big we were restricting ourselves. I decided we'd go all the way
back and make them small. I call them the Piccolo Venetians."
— Chihuly
Venetian Drawing
22 x 30”
1995
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Orange Piccolo Venetian with Black Leaf and Coils
14 x 5 x 5"
1994
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Silvered Gilded Wild Rose Piccolo
16 x 6 x 6”
2000
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Silvered Sea Blue Piccolo Venetian with Burgundy Gilded Handles
17 x 10 x 10"
2009
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Silvered Aquamarine Piccolo Venetian with Magenta Flowers
15 x 11 x 11"
2009
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Venetians
"Lino [Tagliapietra] had been coming to Pilchuck for years,
but I had never worked with European masters. My work
had always been unorthodox and asymmetrical, and the idea
of working with a European master didn't make sense. But
Lino and I decided that we'd try to do something together, so I
designed a series that was a take-off from some Venetian Art
Deco pieces I had seen from the 1920s. I was able to sketch
them, and from those sketches, Lino began to work. We had a
great time putting these together....I was lucky to have not only
Lino, one of the really extraordinary glass masters of the world,
but also Ben Moore, who speaks Italian. Benny would organize
the teams and Lino would be the mentor. From there, we'd put
together anywhere from twelve to eighteen glassblowers, primarily
from Seattle, to do the most extreme pieces I felt like imagining."
— Chihuly
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Dale Chihuly and Lino Tagliapietra, 1989
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Silvered Clear Venetian with Three Fiddleheads
19 x 16 x 8”
1989
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Purple Lake Venetian
25 x 20 x 9”
1988
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Rembrandt Rose #90 Venetian
20 x 13 x 13"
1989
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Olive Green Venetian with Orange Flower
32 x 10 x 13"
1990
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Silver Blue Venetian
20 x 10 x 9"
1990
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Red Orange Venetian with Lily and Coil
37 x 12 x 10"
1991
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Cassel Yellow Venetian with Gilded Lapis Lazuli Leaves
30 x 16 x 15”
2002
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Mottled Ochre and Indigo Venetian with Prunts
15 x 20 x 20”
2008
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Silvered Venetian with Saturn Orange Flowers
43 x 16 x 12”
2009
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Galena Blue Venetian with Blue and Gold Ridges and Flowers
24 x 16 x 16”
2010
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Muted Emerald Venetian
30 x 11 x 12"
2011
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Pansy Violet Venetian
23 x 11 x 11"
2011
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White Venetian
22 x 16 x 16"
2011
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DALE CHIHULY
1941 Born September 20 in
Tacoma, Washington, to George
Chihuly and Viola Magnuson Chihuly.
1965 Receives B.A. in Interior
Design from University of Washington.
In his basement studio, Chihuly blows
his first glass bubble by melting
stained glass and using a metal pipe.
1966 Works as a commercial
fisherman in Alaska. Enters
University of Wisconsin
at Madison and studies
glassblowing in the first glass
program in the United States,
taught by Harvey Littleton.
1967 Receives M.S. in
Sculpture from University of
Wisconsin. Enrolls at Rhode
Island School of Design
(RISD) in Providence, where
he begins exploration of
environmental works using
neon, argon, and blown
glass. Awarded a Louis
Chihuly
Comfort Tiffany Foundation
Grant for work in glass.
Italo Scanga, then teaching in
Pennsylvania State University’s Art
Department, lectures at RISD, and
the two start a lifelong friendship.
1968 Receives M.F.A. in Ceramics
from RISD. A Fulbright Fellowship
enables him to travel and work in
Europe later in the year. Spends the
first of four consecutive summers
teaching at Haystack Mountain
School of Crafts in Deer Isle,
Maine. Becomes the first American
glassblower to work in the Venini
factory on the island of Murano.
1969 Returns to Europe and meets
glass masters Erwin Eisch in Germany
and Jaroslava Brychtová and
Stanislav Libenský in Czechoslovakia.
Established the glass program at
RISD, where he teaches for the next
eleven years.
of Ice and Neon, Glass Forest #1,
and Glass Forest #2 with James
Carpenter, installations that prefigure
later environmental works by Chihuly.
1972 Collaborates with James
Carpenter on more large-scale
architectural projects. They create
Rondel Door and Cast Glass Door at
Pilchuck and Dry Ice, Bent Glass and
Neon, a conceptual breakthrough, in
Providence.
1974 Working at Pilchuck
with James Carpenter and
a group of students, with
the support of a National
Endowment for the Arts grant,
he develops a technique to
pick up glass thread drawings
to incorporate into larger
glass pieces. In December
at RISD, he completes his last
collaborative project with
Carpenter, Corning Wall.
at the Venini Fabrica, Murano, Italy, 1969
1970 Meets James Carpenter,
a student in RISD Illustration
Department, and they begin a fouryear collaboration.
1971 On the site of a tree farm
owned by Seattle art patrons Anne
Gould Hauberg and John Hauberg,
the Pilchuck Glass School experiment
is started. Pilchuck Pond, Chihuly’s
first environmental installation at the
school, is created that summer. In
fall, at RISD, he makes 20,000 Pounds
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1975 At RISD, begins Navajo
Blanket Cylinder series. Kate
Elliott and, later, Flora C.
Mace fabricate the complex thread
drawings. He receives the first of
two National Endowment for the
Arts Individual Artist grants. Artistin-residence with Seaver Leslie at
Artpark, on the Niagara Gorge, in
New York State. Begins Irish Cylinders
and Ulysses Cylinders with Leslie and
Mace.
1976 An automobile accident in
England leaves him, after weeks in
the hospital and 256 stitches in his
face, without sight in his left eye and
with permanent damage to his right
ankle and foot. After recuperating,
he returns to Providence to serve
as head of the Department of
Sculpture and the Program in
Glass at RISD. Henry Geldzahler,
curator of contemporary art at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York, acquires three Navajo Blanket
Cylinders for the museum’s collection
— a turning point in Chihuly’s career
and the start of a friendship between
artist and curator.
1977 Inspired by Northwest Coast
Indian baskets he sees at Washington
State History Museum in Tacoma,
begins the Basket series at Pilchuck,
with Benjamin Moore as gaffer.
Continues teaching in both Rhode
Island and the Pacific Northwest.
1978 Meets Pilchuck student
William Morris, and the two
begin a close, eight-year working
relationship. A solo show curated by
Michael W. Monroe at the Renwick
Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, in
Washington, D.C., is another career
milestone.
1979 Dislocates his shoulder
in a bodysurfing accident and
relinquishes the gaffer position for
good. William Morris becomes his
chief gaffer for several years.
1980 Resigns his teaching position
at RISD but returns periodically
in the 80s as artist in-residence.
Begins Seaform series at Pilchuck.
In Providence, creates another
architectural installation: windows for
Shaare Emeth Synagogue in St. Louis,
Missouri.
1981
Begins Macchia series.
1982 First major catalog is
published: Chihuly Glass, designed
by RISD colleague and friend
Malcolm Grear.
1983 Returns to Pacific Northwest
after sixteen years on East Coast.
Further develops Macchia series
at Pilchuck in fall and winter, with
William Morris as chief gaffer.
1984 Begins work on Soft Cylinder
series, with Flora C. Mace and
Joey Kirkpatrick executing the
glass drawings. Honored as RISD
President’s Fellow at the Whitney
Museum in New York.
team of glassblowers at Pilchuck,
begins Putti series. With Tagliapietra,
Chihuly creates Ikebana series,
inspired by travels to Japan and
exposure to ikebana masters.
1990 Purchases historic Pocock
Building on Lake Union, realizing
his dream of being on the water in
Seattle. Renovated and renamed
The Boathouse, it serves as studio,
hotshop, and archives. Returns to
Japan.
1985 Purchases the Buffalo Shoe
Company Building on the east side
of Lake Union in Seattle and begins
restoring it for use as a primary studio
and residence.
1986 Begins Persian series with
Martin Blank as gaffer, assisted by
Robbie Miller. With Dale Chihuly
Objets de Verre at Musée des Arts
Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, in Paris,
he becomes the fourth American
artist to have a one-person exhibition
at the Louvre.
1987 Establishes his first hotshop
in Van de Kamp Building near Lake
Union in Seattle. Donates permanent
collection to Tacoma Art Museum
in memory of his brother and father.
Marries playwright Sylvia Peto.
1988 Inspired by a private
collection of Italian Art Deco glass,
Chihuly begins Venetian series.
Working from Chihuly’s Drawings,
Lino Tagliapietra serves as gaffer.
1989 With Italian glass masters Lino
Tagliapietra, Pino Signoretto, and a
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Dale Chihuly and Lino Tagliapietra, 1989
” ...After a couple of days the pieces became much
more involved. It wasn’t long before something
started to happen. It opened first in the drawings....
around the fourth or fifth day I started to make
bold drawings in charcoal. The series started a
drastic change from rather refined classical shapes
to very bizarre pieces: handles changed to knots,
prunts became claws, colors went from subtle to
bright, big leaves and feathers appeared.”
1991 Begins Niijima Float series with
Richard Royal as gaffer, creating
some of the largest pieces of glass
ever blown by hand. Completes
architectural installations. He and
Sylvia Peto divorce.
1998 Participates in Sydney Arts
Festival in Australia. A son, Jackson
Viola Chihuly, is born February 12
to Dale Chihuly and Leslie Jackson.
Creates architectural installations for
Benaroya Hall, Seattle; Bellagio, Las
Vegas; and Atlantis, Bahamas.
1992 Begins Chandelier series with
a hanging sculpture at Seattle Art
Museum. Designs sets for Seattle
Opera’s 1993 production of Debussy’s
Pelléas et Mélisande.
1999 Begins Jerusalem Cylinder
series with gaffer James Mongrain.
Mounts an ambitious exhibition,
Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem
2000, at Tower of David Museum of
the History of Jerusalem. Builds a
sixty-foot wall outside from twentyfour massive blocks of ice shipped
from Alaska.
1993 With Lino Tagliapietra, begins
Piccolo Venetian series. Creates
100,000 Pounds of Ice and Neon, a
temporary installation in Tacoma
Dome.
2000 Creates La Tour de Lumière
sculpture as part of Contemporary
American Sculpture exhibition
in Monte Carlo. More than one
million visitors enter Tower of David
Museum to see Chihuly in the Light of
Jerusalem 2000, breaking the world
attendance record for a temporary
exhibition during 1999–2000.
1994 Creates five installations for
Tacoma’s Union Station Federal
Courthouse. Supports Hilltop Artists,
a glassblowing program in Tacoma
for at-risk youths, created by friend
Kathy Kaperick. Within two years,
the program partners with Tacoma
Public School District.
1995 Chihuly Over Venice begins
with a glassblowing session in
Nuutajärvi, Finland, and subsequent
blow at Waterford Crystal factory,
Ireland.
2001 Chihuly at the V&A opens at
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Groups a series of Chandeliers for
the first time, as an installation for
Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
Presents his first major glasshouse
exhibition, Chihuly in the Park: A
Garden of Glass, at Garfield Park
Conservatory, Chicago. Artist Italo
Scanga dies after more than three
decades as friend and mentor.
1996 After a blow in Monterrey,
Mexico, Chihuly Over Venice
culminates with fifteen Chandeliers
installed around Venice. Creates his
first permanent outdoor installation,
Icicle Creek Chandelier.
1997 Expands series of
experimental plastics he calls
Polyvitro. An installation of Chihuly’s
work opens at Hakone Glass Forest,
Ukai Museum, in Hakone, Japan.
Dale Chihuly, Palazzetto Stern Chandelier, 1996, 12’6” x 5’11”, Venice, Italy
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2002 Creates installations for
Olympic Winter Games in Salt
Lake City. Chihuly Bridge of
Glass, conceived by Chihuly and
designed in collaboration with
Arthur Andersson of Andersson•Wise
Architects, is dedicated in Tacoma.
2003 Begins Fiori series with
gaffer Joey DeCamp for opening
exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum's
new building. Museum designs a
permanent space for its Chihuly
artwork. Chihuly at the Conservatory
opens at Franklin Park Conservatory,
Columbus, Ohio.
2004 Orlando Museum of Art
and Museum of Fine Arts, St.
Petersburg, Florida, become first
museums to collaborate and present
complementary exhibitions of
Chihuly’s artwork. Installs glasshouse
and outdoor exhibition at Atlanta
Botanical Garden.
2005 Marries Leslie Jackson. Installs
major garden exhibition at Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew, outside
London. Exhibits at Fairchild Tropical
Botanic Garden, Coral Gables,
Florida.
2006 Mother, Viola, dies at age
ninety-eight in Tacoma. Begins
Black series with a Cylinder blow.
Presents exhibitions at Missouri
Botanical Garden, St. Louis, and
New York Botanical Garden. Chihuly
in Tacoma—hotshop sessions at
Museum of Glass—reunites Chihuly
and glassblowers from important
periods of his career.
2007 Exhibits at Phipps
Conservatory and Botanical
Gardens, Pittsburgh. Creates stage
set for Seattle Symphony’s production
of Béla Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s
Castle.
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2008 Presents major exhibition at
de Young Museum, San Francisco.
Travels to Rhode Island for exhibition
at RISD Museum of Art. Exhibits at
Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.
2009 Begins Silvered series. Presents
garden exhibition at Franklin Park
Conservatory, Columbus, Ohio.
Participates in 53rd Venice Biennale
with Mille Fiori Venezia installation.
Creates largest commission with
multiple installations at island resort
of Sentosa, Singapore.
2010 Exhibits outdoors at Salk
Institute for Biological Studies in La
Jolla, California. Presents exhibitions
at Frederik Meijer Gardens &
Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, and Cheekwood
Botanical Garden and Museum of
Art, Nashville.
2011 Holds exhibitions at Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston, and Tacoma Art
Museum.
2012 Exhibits at Dallas Arboretum
and Botanical Garden. Chihuly
Garden and Glass, a long-term
exhibition, opens at Seattle Center.
Exhibits at Virginia Museum of Fine
Arts, Richmond.
2013 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
holds exhibition of Chihuly art.
Schantz Galleries is proud to publish
Chihuly Venetians to commemorate
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
series by Dale Chihuly.
Thank you
to Dale Chihuly for your continued creativity
and your grand vision and imagination,
which has inspired and thrilled people all over the world.
Jim Schantz and Kim Saul
Schantz Galleries 2013
Thank you to to Andy Schlauch and Susan Marabito for helpinng us to choose the artwork and to Ken Clark, Rebecca
Heck, Goretti Kaomora, Tiffany Moss, and Sara Peil for assistance with proofing and editing of this publication.
Artwork Photographers:
David Emery, Claire Garoutte, Robin E. Kimmerling, Scott Mitchell Leen, Teresa Nouri Rishel, Chuck Taylor
Design by: Kim Saul
© 2013 Schantz Galleries Stockbridge, Massachusetts Tel (413)298-3044 www.schantzgalleries.com
ISBN: 978-0-9857380-0-6
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Notes:
From Essay by Donald Kuspit
(1)Quoted in Hugh Honour and John Fleming, The Venetian Hours of Henry James, Whistler and Sargent
(Boston and London: Little, Brown, 1991), 105
(2)Quoted in Ibid., 48
(3)Hans Sedlmayr, Art in Crisis: The Lost Centre (London: Hollis & Carter, 1957), 91-92
(4)Ibid., 164
(5)Ibid., 190
page 14: From an unpublished statement: Venetians: Dale Chihuly
page 34: From video: Chihuly and the Masters of Venice, 2001
page 44: From video: Seattle Art Museum, AK Productions 1992
page 73: From Venetians: Dale Chihuly, published by Portland Press 1989
Details:
Front and back covers: Silvered Clear Venetian with Three Fiddleheads on page 47
page 2: Silvered Gilded Wild Rose Piccolo Venetian with Curls on page 38
page 5: Mottled Ochre and Indigo Venetian with Prunts on page 60
page 6: Silvered Aquamarine Piccolo Venetian with Magenta Flowers on page 42
page 9: Galena Blue Venetian with Blue and Gold Ridges and Flowers on page 65
page 10: Silvered Venetian with Saturn Orange Flowers on page 62
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Chihuly Venetians
A Silver Anniversary Celebration of Dale Chihuly’s Venetian Series 1988–2013
All artwork images © Chihuly Studio
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