Dale Patrick Chihuly was born on 20th September 1941, in Tacoma, Washington USA, and is an entrepreneur known for his blown glass sculptures, including Cylinders and Baskets, Venetians and Persians, Chandeliers, Seaforms, and many other works.
Have you ever wondered how rich Dale Chihuly is, as of early 2017? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that Dale’s net worth is as high as $10 million, earned through his successful career which now spans over four decades, during which he has become one of the most famed artists overall.
Dale Chihuly Net Worth $10 Million
Dale is the son of George and Viola Magnuson Chihuly. He had a brother, George, who died in an Air Force accident in 1955, and just two years later, Dale lost his father to heart attack.
He went to Woodrow Wilson High School, and matriculated in 1959. After which on his mother’s insistence he enrolled at the College of Puget Sound. In his second year he moved to the University of Washington located in Seattle to study interior designed, but as time passed he became interested in melting glass, and learned to melt and fuse it. His next step was dropping out of college and leaving for Florence, Italy to study art. He then traveled to the Middle East where he met and befriended Robert Landsman, an architect, and this made Dale re-think his studies, and so returned to college, obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in interior design in 1965 from the University of Washington.
After that he started to experiment with glassblowing, and the next year he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a full scholarship. While there, his mentor was Harvey Littleton, who was the pioneer in starting glass programs in the USA. In 1967 he obtained a Master of Science degree in sculpture, and then enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design where he became close friends with Italo Scanga, also an artist. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture in 1968, and the same year was the recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant for his work in glass, and furthermorewas named into the Fulbright Fellowship scheme. After that, he went to Italy again, this time to Venice, and found a job on the island of Murano in the Venini factory, and was first introduced to techniques of blowing glass. Dale moved back to the USA, but only for a short while as he traveled to Europe to meet artists Erwin Eisch and Stanisllav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova. Dale was also a summer school teacher at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine for four consecutive years.
Starting in 1971 he founded Pilchuck Glass School with the help of Anne Gould Hauberg and her husband John Hauberg. Also, he started Hill Top Artists program in his birth place, Tacoma, Washington at Jason Lee Middle School, and at his ex-school Woodrow Wilson High School.
He started making glass sculptures in 1975 with the first work named Navajo Blanket Series, in which patterns of Navajo Blankets were painted onto glass. However, the following year he suffered a car accident while in London, and as a result his left eye was cut by windshield which left Dale blinded in that eye. His next sculptures were Northwest Coast Basket Series, exhibited in 1977, but in 1979 he hurt his shoulder and was unable to practice glass blowing. Nevertheless, he hired others to do his work on his ideas. Some of the most successful thin glass sculptures include the Seaform Series, which are transparent, released in 1980, then the Venetian Series, which are in essence improvisations based on Italian Art Deco, released in 1988, and Chandeliers in 1992, among many other series of sculptures. Some of his works are on permanent display, including Amber Luster Chandelier, which hangs in the Julie Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; Persian Window, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; Persian Sea, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; then Lime Green Icicle Tower, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and many others.
His work has been exhibited in some of the most prestigious museums all over the world, including Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Palais De Louvre, Victoria and Albert museum in London, and Tower of David among others.
Regarding his personal life, Dale has been married to Leslie Jackson since 2005. He was previously married to Sylvia Peto from 1987-91.
