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Dale Chihuly | Biography

Biography: Dale Chihuly

Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country, at the University of Wisconsin. He continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he later established the glass program and taught for more than a decade. In 1968, after receiving a Fulbright Fellowship, he went to work at the Venini glass factory in Venice. There he observed the team approach to blowing glass, which is critical to the way he works today. In 1971, Chihuly cofounded Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State. With this international glass center, Chihuly has led the avant-garde in the development of glass as a fine art. His work is included in more than 200 museum collections worldwide. He has been the recipient of many awards, including two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and thirteen honorary doctorates.

Chihuly has created more than a dozen well-known series of works, among them Cylinders and Baskets in the 1970s; Seaforms, Macchia, Persians, and Venetians in the 1980s; Niijima Floats and Chandeliers in the 1990s; and Fiori, Glass on Glass, and Rotolo in the 2000s. He is also celebrated for large architectural installations. In 1986, he was honored with a solo exhibition, Dale Chihuly: Objets de Verre, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, in Paris. In 1995, he began Chihuly Over Venice, for which he created sculptures at glass factories in Finland, Ireland, and Mexico, then installed them over the canals and piazzas of Venice.

In 1999, Chihuly started an ambitious exhibition, Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem; more than 1 million visitors attended the Tower of David Museum to view his installations. In 2001, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London curated the exhibition Chihuly at the V&A. His lifelong fascination for glasshouses has grown into a series of exhibitions within botanical settings. The Garden Cycle began in 2001 at the Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, and continued at several locations, among them the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London, in 2005 and 2019; the New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, in 2006 and 2017; and Gardens by the Bay, Singapore, in 2021.

Chihuly has shown his work in solo exhibitions at museums including the de Young Museum, San Francisco, in 2008; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 2011; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, in 2012; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, in 2013; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, in 2016; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, in 2017; Groninger Museum, Groningen, the Netherlands, in 2018; and Artis—Naples, The Baker Museum, Naples, Florida, in 2020. Chihuly Garden and Glass, a major long-term exhibition, opened in Seattle in 2012.