Hunter Museum of American Art

May 15th - Aug 9th, 2009

In conjunction with the Jellies: Living Art exhibition opening May 15 at the Tennessee Aquarium, the Hunter will feature the Laguna Murano Chandelier and accompanying works by Dale Chihuly from the George R. Stroemple Collection.

Join us to celebrate the opening weekend of Jellies: Living Art and the Hunter's Dale Chihuly exhibit  during the JellyFest on May 16 and 17.

Chihuly is considered a revolutionary in the world of glass, and is largely responsible for inspiring much of the experimentation in contemporary glass blowing and glass sculpture.

He studied with Harvey Littleton, who formed one of the first university glass programs in the United States. Chihuly also studied in Italy, where the art of glassblowing has been perfected—and kept secret—for centuries.

In Italy, he learned not only technique, but the idea of working with a team of master craftspeople on a single piece, a collaborative approach he still uses today. This has allowed him to continue to work as a glass artist even after his 1976 auto accident that cost him the sight in his left eye. Since then, Chihuly has not been able to blow glass, but instead creates large expressionistic drawings that are then used as the basis for the larger works.Upon his return to America, Chihuly helped found the Pilchuck Glass School, which continues to be the center of contemporary glass production.

The centerpiece of the exhibition, the Laguna Murano Chandelier, came about as part of an international collaboration. During 1995 and 1996, Chihuly traveled to four countries with strong glass blowing traditions—Finland, Ireland, Mexico and Italy—and created a series of chandeliers at each stop. Each chandelier is made of hundreds of individually blown pieces of glass. The Laguna Murano began as part of this project but was not completed until later in Seattle.

Most of Chihuly’s chandeliers hang from the ceiling, much like a traditional chandelier. Laguna Murano, however, both hangs from the ceiling and sits on the floor, and can be reconfigured for different spaces.

Hear more about the installation of the Chihuly chandelier at the Hunter.

Also included in the exhibition are Stoppers, oversized glass vessels, which came from a collaborative endeavor between Chihuly and Italian glass master, Pino Signoretto. These pieces pay homage to Italian art deco glass from the 1920s. Gold, cherubs, flowers, and dragons ornament the Stoppers.

Artists cannot exist without patrons and collectors, and George Stroemple is a true patron of Dale Chihuly’s work. The George R. Stroemple Collection is enormous, consisting not just of contemporary art, but historical paintings, Japanese ceramics and Meiji era bronzes. Mr. Stroemple has been supportive of Chihuly’s career for nearly twenty years, and has the largest holding of the artist’s work with more than 500 objects, including Chihuly’s earliest works, the Irish Cylinder series.

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