Image: Photo by Russell Johnson
Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, has published an interview with Dale and Leslie Chihuly about the museum's 2026 capital renovation project and its planned Lino Tagliapietra Legacy Gallery, a permanent space devoted to the Venetian glass master.
The museum frames the project around collaboration, which it sees as central to glassmaking and to the rise of the Pacific Northwest as a centre of experimentation in the medium. It singles out the long friendship between Tagliapietra and Tacoma-born Dale Chihuly as a cornerstone of that story. Tagliapietra first travelled to the United States in the early 1980s at the invitation of Chihuly's Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington, and his workshops gave American artists access to the technical skills they needed to realise their ideas in glass.
In the interview, the Chihulys, who are among the museum's founders, describe its Hot Shop and public demonstrations as having given visitors a rare view of glassblowing, and present the renovation as an investment in the future of contemporary glass. They credit Tagliapietra with bringing Venetian techniques into American studio practice as one of the first teachers from Murano to work at Pilchuck, recall years of collaboration with Dale Chihuly on the Venetian series, and praise his readiness to keep seeking new collaborators rather than rest on his mastery.
Asked about the planned gallery, they say a permanent space would share both his work and his knowledge with future generations of artists, students and visitors, in an art form that depends on passing skills from one maker to the next. They also argue that anchoring his legacy in the Pacific Northwest matters because much of his teaching took place in the region, and because American studio glass grew out of the community that formed there.
The museum has not announced an opening date for the gallery.
