Dale Chihuly: Gifted
Open until Jan 11
The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery
25 Caroline St N, Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y5, Canada
Free
Organized by The Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery
Dale Chihuly’s Lapis Blue Chandelier, suspended overhead, was generously gifted to the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery by Erica and Andrew O’Born in February 2026. It joins two earlier Chihuly works in the Permanent Collection: Amber Vase (1974–1975) and Blue Sky Basket Set (2004). Together, these works trace the artist’s evolution while revealing his enduring challenge to traditional ideas about glass.
Born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1941, Chihuly became known for moving art glass beyond the pedestal, creating large-scale installations experienced as environmental or architectural. His team-based methods of production and installation further challenged the preciousness and singularity traditionally associated with glass art, emphasizing playfulness, scale, and sensory experience.
This emphasis on experience is central to Lapis Blue Chandelier. Initially configured in 2004 in a more vertical arrangement resembling an icicle, its present configuration was conceived in 2014. Its capacity for transformation reflects Chihuly’s openness to redesign and his rejection of the notion that a work must have a single, fixed form.