Saturday, June 20, 2015

Books about Dale Chihuly

Books about art sell well in art auctions. I have found many publications that feature my favorite artist, Dale Chihuly. There are books, catalogs and even magazines routinely up for auction.

Chihuly Gardens and Glass is currently for sale in several art auctions. This book is beautifully illustrated and shows installations at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago. The book has an essay by Barbara Rose addressing Dale Chihuly's place in art history. There is another essay by the Garfield Conservatory director that provides a history of garden conservatories

Chihuly at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew features more than one hundred photographs that captured this event. An art auction for this book sold for fifty dollars. The exhibit at the Royal Botanical Gardens was Dale Chihuly’s first botanical garden exhibition outside of the United States.

Chihuly Seaforms has an excellent value at an art auction. It depicts forty four color photographs of his most ethereal series to date. The pieces he created for this series have been called not only "reflections of skill, passion, teamwork and sheer genius" but also "tributes" to the sea. He is truly a master.

Chihuly Form Fire was published in 1993 and it only occasionally shows up in art auctions. The book is hardcover and 144 pages long with over 75 color reproductions of his splendid work. There is a very informative commentary in the book about Chihuly’s career.

Chihuly has been exhibited all over the world and the accompanying catalogs sell for a lot at an art auction. The catalogs have a value to people that cannot possibly afford to ever own an actual piece of his art. I bought a catalog at an art auction that depicted his installations from the years 1964-1992. I have spent a lot of time looking at the photographs and have determined that Chihuly is pure genius.

I really want to find a copy of Chihuly Jerusalem 2000 at an art auction. The book sells new for fifty dollars. I think that the story of this journey and exhibit is extraordinary and I want to own a copy of this book. This book contains 117 full-color reproductions and from what I’ve seen they are all extraordinary.

I was surprised that even the book of Chihuly’s drawings has tremendous resale value at an art auction. He is able to convey such beauty and energy with his work and these drawings actually do the same thing. These drawings are what his ideas start out as before they are fully realized in glass.

There is one inexpensive Chihuly book that I rarely seen in art auctions. It only contains 17 color reproductions. It does cover the installations that had 20,000 pounds of ice. These were called the neon-and-ice installations and they had a powerful effect on the people that viewed them. This book is soft cover and it is better to buy it new from a website than from a previous owner at an art auction.

I’ve lost countless art auctions for the book that contains photos of his exhibit at the Marlborough Gallery in New York City. I just never bid enough. At some point, I will probably just have to bid more to win it from an art auction. I know that the 51 images are dramatic, but the book is a soft cover and I just don’t think I should pay $25 for it.

My mother won a Chihuly book for me at an art auction last year. It chronicled the installation in Japan at the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in 1990. I loved each and every one of the 54 images contained in this book. I have been asked several times to loan it to friends, but I have refused. This is one book that I refuse to lose.

In 1986, Chihuly was only the fourth American to get a solo exhibition at the Louvre in Paris. There was a soft cover book published with 33 photos in it that chronicles the exhibit. Also in the book is an introduction written by the chief curator and director of the Centre du Verre. This is the next book I hope to own and I’ve been watching art auctions hoping to see it pop up.

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