Organised across mediums – graphite, charcoal and acrylic, the thirty-five year survey was guest curated by renowned art historian Barry Rosen. Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Chihuly has been an innovator for more than 40 years. Significantly, Chihuly was also commissioned to create a permanent architectural art environment for a philanthropic healing arts program at the Fred and Pamela Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha, Nebraska. ‘Dale Chihuly is not just a major player in the art world; he’s one of those rare people who have actually changed the game’, writes Ben Bamsey in He draws inspiration from the world around him, creating statements using color and form to capture the imagination, and catapult beyond conventional ideas of function and beauty. 1941. Chihuly’s work is included in more than 200 museum collections worldwide including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Corning Museum of Glass. Biltmore’s newest exhibition displays the stunning glass masterpieces of Dale Chihuly amongst Biltmore’s elegant grounds and gardens. All Rights Reserved Chihuly Garden and Glass, a long term exhibition devoted entirely to Chihuly’s work, was opened at the Seattle Center in May 2012 to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the 1962 World’s Fair. Over the course of five decades, Dale Chihuly has explored new and old techniques, pushing the boundaries of contemporary art. Many subsequent installations are intensely colourful, either exploring one vibrant shade, like In the build-up to the London 2012 Olympic Games, a monumental new outdoor sculpture commissioned by the gallery, Torchlight Chandelier, was installed on Park Lane. They also serve to reference and develop the concepts Chihuly explores in glass, offering further insight into his creative process and his engagement with gestural line and colour. After working as a designer at John Graham Architects in Seattle in 1965 and a period fishing commercially in Alaska, Chihuly won a scholarship enabling him to enrol for a Master of Science in sculpture at the University of Wisconsin in Madison (1966–1967). Despite two serious accidents in the 1970s that left him without sight in his left eye and with a damaged shoulder, Chihuly has pursued a long and successful creative career; conceiving and supervising the realisation of fantastic works of art in glass, recording ephemeral works on camera and DVD, publishing over 20 books and forever extending the range of glass art in the open air. The exhibition will feature multi-media artist Dale Chihuly’s monumental sculptures presented throughout the historic estate, both in its gardens and galleries. First considered illustrative tools to direct and inspire his visions in glass, Chihuly’s ‘Drawings’ have evolved to become distinct forms of expression in his practice. Among the series he has developed are ‘Navajo Blanket Cylinders’ and ‘Baskets’ in the 1970s; ‘Seaforms’, ‘Macchia’ (Italian for ‘spotted’), ‘Persians’ and ‘Venetians’ in the 1980s; ‘Chandeliers’ and ‘Towers’ in the 1990s; and, since the year 2000, ‘Fiori’ (‘flowers’), the technically challenging ‘Rotolo’, and three-dimensional ‘Glass on Glass’ Drawings.

During his initial degree course, studying interior design and architecture at the University of Washington in Seattle in the early 1960s, he learned to melt and fuse glass. While his earlier works were more muted, ‘Macchia’ consciously used all the 300 hues at his disposal. The recipient of many awards, Chihuly holds twelve honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Dale Chihuly Buttercup Persian Sold Out Limited Portland Press Glass Sculpture $6,950.00 Dale Chihuly 5 Piece Original Basket Set Blown Glass Hand Signed Red Black Large Focused on the relationship between artworks and the space that surrounds them, which the artist believes is profoundly important, the show featured theatrical set pieces that responded with animation to the architecture of the gallery. Public demand for Chihuly’s artwork continues apace. The Italian practice of teamwork contrasted with Littleton’s more individualised approach and was to become a significant method of working for Chihuly and his team. Since 2016 - the year of his 75th birthday - the artist has presented exhibitions at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in Atlanta, Georgia, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the New York Botanical Gardens in New York City, Catalina Island Museum in California, Biltmore Estate in North Carolina and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. 2018 and 2019 have seen a renewed focus on European exhibitions, starting with the Chihuly NOW exhibition at Halcyon Gallery, London; a survey of the artist’s current practice and processes. It is conceived on a grand scale, with monumental outdoor installations of his signature ‘Chandeliers’, ‘Towers’ and ‘Reeds’, a sizable exhibition hall and a bespoke glasshouse of some 400 square metres displaying an immense suspended sculpture of around 2,000 elements in shades of oxblood red, orange, amber and citron yellow.