Chihuly at the V and A - Hardcover

Opie, Jennifer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1851773630 ISBN 13: 9781851773633

Publisher: V & A Publications, 2001

Synopsis

This work accompanies the first ever exhibition in the UK of the work of the internationally celebrated glass artist, Dale Chihuly. Chihuly's glass is richly-coloured, extravagantly formed and enormously varied - ranging from chandeliers to spears, "Seaforms" to "Macchias", renowned for their organic subtlety and textural refinement. His work, which owes much to the grand tradition of Venetian glass, is put into historical context and his importance in introducing the Venetian style to America is also explored. Both the exhibition - the first full-scale installation by the Seattle artist to be shown in Britain - and the books show the enormous variety of glass forms that comprise Chihuly's work as it has developed since the early 1970s. His glass is technically and sculpturally ambitious on a scale unmatched by any other maker. Drawing on the Museum's historic Renaissance collections and expertise, the book also explores the development of the traditional Venetian glass workshop and Chihuly's enormous influence in introducing Venetian glass-makers to the USA. It includes a brief resume of his career and an assessment of his art and its significance. The specially taken colour photographs do full justice to Chihuly's work which has become a by-word for all that is spectacular and exciting in contemporary glass.

About this title

Review

Chihuly at the V&A was published to accompany Seattle-based avant-garde glass sculptor Dale Chihuly's exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum in 2001, his first exhibition in Britain. Chihuly's glass is distinctive and grandly conceived; and his fame has been achieved through his growth as an artist as well as the overwhelming public response to his work. The centrepiece of the V&A exhibition was a sculpture originally titled "Ice Blue and Spring Green Chandelier", which was designed, blown and first assembled in Seattle but has been hanging in the domed area of the museum since October 1999. This, and many other Chihuly sculptures, are described and photographed in the book, which is divided into three sections. The first, titled "Chihuly at the V&A" was written by Jennifer Hawkins Opie, Deputy Curator of the Department of Ceramics and Glass at the V&A. A chapter on "Venetian Tradition" was written by Reino Liefkes, an expert on European glass, and the final chapter, "Chihuly and Venice" was by Dan Klein, an authority on 20th-century decorative arts and contemporary glass. We learn that Chihuly worked and studied with the glass masters of the Venetian island of Murano. He uses their collaborative glassmaking techniques in making his sculptures. Three or four people work together in a choreographed performance--each playing a precise part in the gathering of the glass and the making of the object under the direction of the master gaffer, the "maestro". Chihuly's "oeuvre" owes much to the grand tradition of Venetian glass, which the V&A represents with international standing. The museum therefore offered a splendid context for Chihuly's work and this book offers researched insight into the historical continuum against which his work should be judged. --Dale Kneen

About the Author

Jennifer Hawkins Opie is a Deputy Curator in the Department of Ceramics and Glass at the Victoria and Albert Museum, specialising in the 19th and 20th centuries and in contemporary work, glass in particular. She has worked on many V&A exhibitions, most recently Art Nouvean 1890-1914 and was a contributor to the accompanying book edited by Paul Greenhalgh (V&A Publications, 2000). She is the author of Scandinavia, Ceramics and Glass (V&A Publications, reissued 2001). She is curator of the V&A's Chihuly exhibition.

About this edition

• Publisher: V & A Publications
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1851773630
• ISBN 13: 9781851773633
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 151