Chihuly at the V and A - Hardcover

Chihuly at the V&A catalogs 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 centerpiece 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" is 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

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.