Dale Chihuly 1978 Signed Early Era Hand Blown Glass Toffee Espresso Tabac Basket

Artist: Dale Chihuly
Title: Toffee Espresso Tabac Basket
Medium: Hand Blown Glass
Dimensions: 3.5" x 2.75" x 2.75"
Year: 1978
Inscription: Signed and dated "Chihuly '78"
Documentation: Includes gallery certificate of authenticity

For hundreds of years, traditional glass art sought to achieve the ideal of classical perfection through clean lines and symmetrical forms. During the 1970s, Dale Chihuly began to experiment with gravity and asymmetry, borrowing from the organic forms of nature and forever changing the aesthetics of glass art. He began the 70s with his series of cylinders and soft cylinders before embarking on the baskets - his longest running series to date.

Dale Chihuly works fro the 1970s, especially the rare signed works, are the most sought after by collectors. Glass blowing has always involved teams of artists working as a unit to control all aspects of the process and handle the complex and physically intensive task. After Dale Chihuly’s accident in 1979, he stopped blowing glass himself and instead planned the creative vision. Because of this, his works from 1979 and before are highly sought after. Also, as Dale Chihuly’s career began to accelerate, his series became larger in size and scale as well as more complex. This required increasingly large teams of glassblowers to mange the workload.

This Dale Chihuly original 1978 signed Toffee Espresso Tabac basket is a quintessential work of this era. It features the muted color pallet Chihuly favored during this period, as well as the unique Tabac glass thread details. Dale Chihuly's 1978 Toffee Espresso Tabac basket is signed and dated "Chihuly '78" and comes with a gallery certificate of authenticity.

About Dale Chihuly

One of the most famous contemporary glass artists in the world, Dale Chihuly is best known for his monumental sculptures and installations. He is the name behind the spectacular ceiling at the Bellagio’s flower garden in Las Vegas and the creator of the Rotunda Chandelier at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Glass works of Dale Chihuly are considered some of the most desired collectibles between the decorative arts devotees today.

Despite his initial indifference towards education, Chihuly has spent a lot of time in school, obtaining both scientific and artistic degree in sculpture from prestigious graduate schools. He displayed a proclivity for interior design and craft early on, but his true passion was always in the glass. He was a Fulbright Fellow in the late 1960s and an apprentice at the Venini Glass Factory in Venice. Mastering the art of Murano glasswork, he continued the experiments with glassblowing and thus became one of the people who brought the ancient art of glassblowing back into the spotlight on an international scale.

Monumental and small-scale artwork of Dale Chihuly is present in over 200 most renowned decorative art collections today, while the artist holds twelve honorary doctorates!

The most illustrious series in his work are Cylinders and Baskets he created in the 1970s; Macchia, Venetians, and Persians from the 1980s, Niijima Floats and Chandeliers created in the 1990s; and a more recent one, Fiori from the 2000s.

For over 30 years, Dale Chihuly has been acting as an artistic director of his team of craftsmen, since he was incapacitated in two accidents, which left him blind in one eye and incapable of holding the blowing tube. This change allowed him to see the possibilities of glass work on a broader scale, while still maintaining his recognizable style.