Cobalt+and+Gold+Leaf+Venetian

Date: 1993
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1999/1999.89.2_1a.jpg?itok=bEKGQP9l width="227" height="347" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/cobalt-and-gold-leaf-venetian-41398"]] || Title: **Cobalt and Gold Leaf Venetian**

Artist: **Dale Chihuly** Born: Tacoma, Washington 1941

Medium: blown glass with surface ornamentation Dimensions: 21 1/8 x 15 1/8 x 13 5/8 in. (53.7 x 38.3 x 34.6 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Elmerina and Paul Parkman

Accession: 1999.89.2 || Dale Chihuly was one of the first American artists to work with Murano glassblowers and thereby gain access to the secrets of Venetian glassblowing. He aims to capture the spirit of the Italian designs and take them further, often shocking the viewer with his exaggerated forms and exuberant decoration. Chihuly has described the breakthrough in his work, when “handles changed to knots, prunts became claws, colors went from subtle to bright and forms shaped by gravity and fire were no longer symmetrical.”
 * About the Artwork (Official Text): **

Born in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly studied with Harvey Littleton, founder of the studio glass movement, at the University of Wisconsin and received an M.F.A. degree from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1968. Chihuly was a co-founder of the Pilchuk Glass School in Stanwood, Washington, and is former director of the glass program at the Rhode Island School of Design. He currently works in Seattle, where he collaborates with and directs a team of glassblowers to produce his signature chandeliers, sea forms, baskets, and cylinders.
 * Biographical Information: **

Among his many honors are the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 1967 and a Fulbright fellowship to Murano, Italy, in 1968. In 1993 Chihuly designed stage sets for the Seattle Opera Companys production of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande. In another site-specific installation, Chihuly traveled to Italy to display his massive chandeliers over Venetian canals in a 1996 exhibition entitled //Chihuly Over Venice//.

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
 * Links: **