Chihuly: Form from Fire

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: Absolutely amazing!
Chihuly is incredible.
Not much in the way of descriptions, just a brief introduction to each series (Macchia's, Persians, etc.), which I found just enough. What I'm interested in are the actual pieces, and there are plenty of exceptional pictures.
Again, amazing. Truly inspiriational for the novice glass blower and an absolute delight for everyone else!

Rating:
Summary: I admit it: This book has won me over.
Review: This book was produced in conjunction with a series of Florida exhibitions in 1993. This book, filled with dozens and dozens of Full Color and full page reproductions in approx. 142 pps., really lays it out for the viewer in a way that, if you were either unfamiliar with or indifferent to Dale Chihuly's work, will make you a convert. Really. I fall into the latter category perhaps because, as the world famous art dealer Henry Geldzahler puts it in the foreward of this book " Chihuly's work is American in its apparent vulgarity, it brazenness and its fearlessness to move farther out west even if there is no further west to move to."
However, when one goes through the varous glass genres that the artist creates, Baskets, Sea Forms, Persians, Venetians, Ikebana, Niijima Floats and Macchia, among others, one begins to appreciate the sheer power and artistry that gets expressed in Chihuly's florid craft. The publishers might have botched the operation if they had cheaped out on the book's production values, fortunately they did not and this 'Made In USA' book can takes its place among any other of your expensive, high-end coffee table (folio sized) art books. As the reviewer states below, there isn't a lot of text here, just an introductory paragraph or two from the artist before each themed chapter but really, the art work says more than enough. I can heartily recommend this book even if you do not collect glass work, and even if you haven't yet cottoned on to Mr. Chihuly's work.