Huntington Museum of Art - Alex Booth Collection

Click here: Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV Saturday Sept 28 - Jan 13
Opening Reception 5:30 - 7:30pm Sept 28th
in conjunction with the opening of "Passionate Gatherings/Private Worlds: Works from Tri State Collections."
Alex Booth Collection.
My Mom sent me a clipping of article by Bob Schwartz, she and my Dad plan to attend and I thought you guy might like to hear about this event and also plan to attend. The Huntington Museum of Art has many unique collections of GLASS among its treasures. The one thing that keeps drawing me back is the Chihuly (donated by the Polan family - for a small Museum to own such a dramatic piece ... well it says a lot about the City of Huntington!)

This event will feature (23) donations by Alex Booth was a Coal broker, his donation includes a Joel Philip Myers (blenko designer) piece. A portrait of Samuel Finley Morse's small daughter by Morse, a pretty fair painter before he gave it up and invented the telegraph. An earthenware camel from the Tang Dynasty, China (A.D. 618-907). If you attend be kind enough to send photos so we can post them.

The Alex Booth Collection is eclectic and should have something to please most everyone, some folks just have great eyes for beauty and quality. If you go, take this opportunity to re visit the Chihuly.

(internet info about Chihuly)
Chihuly graduated from high school in Tacoma. Supported by his mother, after his brother George's death in a flight-training accident in Florida and his father's death of a heart attack, he enrolled at the College of the Puget Sound (now University of Puget Sound) in 1959. A year later, he transferred to the University of Washington at Seattle, where he studied interior design, architecture and glassblowing.
In 1967, he received a Masters of Science in glassblowing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1968, he received a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he later helped establish the school's glass program. In that year, he also received a Fulbright Fellowship, and went on to become the first American glassblower to work in the prestigious Venini Fabrica on the island of Murano. Along with several other glass artists, Chihuly founded the influential Pilchuck Glass School in 1971 in Stanwood, Washington.

Chihuly's Glowing Gemstone Polyvitro Chandelier hangs in the Joslyn Art Museum.
Chihuly lives and works in his 25,000 square foot (2300 m²) studio, nicknamed "The Boathouse" for its former use, on Lake Union. Since losing the vision in one of his eyes in an automobile accident in 1976, Chihuly (who wears an eyepatch) no longer has the depth perception necessary to handle the molten glass himself. Instead, he conceptualizes each project with paint and canvas and then employs a team of artists to do the work. In 1991, Chihuly began his Niijima Floats Series Niijima Floats Series, some of the largest blown glass pieces in the world, at the Niijima International Glass Art Festival in Japan.

Chihuly's work is a story of his life. His fascination with abstract nature forms comes from his mother's garden in Tacoma, Washington. Also, his love for the ocean and its creatures is reflected in his work. Over the past forty years, Chihuly’s glass sculptures have explored color, design, and assemblage. Although his work varies in size and color, he is best known for his multipart blown masterpieces. Also interested in Irish culture, he has produced a sizeable volume of "Irish cylinders,"photo which are more modest in conception than his fanciful blown glass works.
Some of Chihuly's works cover whole ceilings of casinos and hotels, while others are mere palm-size abstract flowers. Chihuly uses intense, vibrant colors and linear decoration to bring his work to life; almost all of his works are vibrantly colored. He is also known for using neon and argon. Chihuly is best known for using nature and its surroundings as a setting for his pieces, and for creating his pieces as though they are part of nature. He sometimes entwines his pieces in tree branches and around tree trunks. He also suspends them in space and floats them in water.