1980

Untitled, "Basket Series"

American, born 1941

After a visit to the Tacoma Historical Society in Washington in the summer of 1977, Chihuly began producing—with the assistance of William Morris (American, born 1957)—wonderful, misshaped, undulating forms in glass like this one. He was strongly influenced by the Northwest Coast Indian baskets he saw in Tacoma, and his formation of the Basket series captured his imagination and led to his experimentation with hot glass’ inherent qualities of liquidity and responsiveness to gravity. These explorations let Chihuly break free from the restriction of symmetry and led him to focus on form rather than surface, which became the foundation for his later work.