Chihuly Over Venice, Nuutajarvi, Finland: Part 1, June 1995

2001: Chihuly Worshop, 2001. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Folio - over 12 - 15" tall. Dale Chihuly Russell Johnson. Signed by Illustrator. Collectible copy, SIGNED, which is to say, featuring a PAINTED SIGNATURE by the author boldly at front cover in bright, colorful paints of red, yellow, and black. First Edition, First Printing, bound handsomely in black half-leather and tan boards with ties, measuring 19" x 13" tall and wide, respectively, with paper leaves being 18" x 12" in size, respectively. Leaves printed on one side of the stiff Simpson Coronado White paper. Single leaf of text dedicating the book to the glass-makers of Nuutajärvi. Another leaf of sketches and notes. All contents loose as issued in portfolio, and now suitable for framing. Some portfolio covers were decorated by Chihuly with splatters or stripes of colored paint; he also signed a much smaller number of them, this being one (perhaps having been reserved for patrons and matrons?). Light wear to edges, slight crease to leather owing to signing. Chihuly Over Venice was the project to create chandeliers in the world's great glass-making centers, and it began in Nuutajarvi, a village found north of Helsinki, Finland, in June 1995. Chihuly and his American glass- blowing artisan assistants worked closely with glass artisans of the Hackman manufacturering company, a factory that was well-known for its production of the great modernist designs of Finnish artists and architects such as Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (3 February 1898 – 11 May 1976) and Timo Tapani Sarpaneva (31 October 1926 – 6 October 2006)and other Finnish masters. There they created the first of the 14 chandeliers that would be installed in Venice, Italy during intense activities of the following year. This exemplar appears unique to the trade, an oversized, loose-leaf portfolio protected in kraft paper stuffed with 26 full-color reproductions designed to document that summer's glass-blowing session. Forty Americans and their Finnish collaborators worked tirelessly in near-total sunlight. never dimmed. Russell Johnson's photographs record the chandeliers and their installation literally into the Finnish landscape (trees and bushes, hanging and swaying), even turned into Beluga whales that bobbed in the Nuutajarvi River. Augmented with the drawings that inspired the glass works and four of the hundreds of faxes that Chihuly sent to describe that "wild and wonderful time" spent in Finland.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.