Publisher's Synopsis
Unconventional as always, Dale Chihuly's career survey at the Seattle Art Museum, 'Dale Chihuly Installations 1964-1992', was not a retrospective. Rather than simply gather individual works to trace the artist's development, Chihuly was invited to create a series of gallery-sized installations. The intent was to explore the relationship of object to space that has intrigued Chihuly since his undergraduate days as an interior design student at the University of Washington. Likewise, this is not a conventional exhibition catalogue. In curator Patterson Sims' essay, 'Scuola di Chihuly: Venezia and Seattle', he chronicles the artist's life and discusses the various series as well as the permanent and temporary installations Chihuly has created since 1964. Like the exhibition, Sims examines everything from the earliest environmental works -- hangings combining fiber and glass that Chihuly had done in his undergraduate weaving class -- to the latest -- stage sets for the Seattle Opera's 1993 production of 'Pelleas et Melisande'. This book with its informative commentary on the stages of the artist's development and archival photographs is an essential part of the Chihuly bibliography.
