The lavish Laguna Murano Chandelier—recently on exhibit at the Museum of Glass— is part of the George Stroemple collection. It was included in an exhibition at The Portland Art Museum (PAM) in 1997, entitled Dale Chihuly: The George Stroemple Collection, featuring 350 works.* As a collector of art, Stroemple was drawn by Chihuly’s innovation, attention to detail and artistic vision.

George Stroemple grew up in Oregon and began collecting art when he was a Marine Sergeant in Vietnam, primarily Japanese ceramics and bronzes from the Meiji period. Later as a student in international business at Oregon State University he focused on 19th century American genre painting. In the mid-1980’s, his attention turned to glass, in part because it was a medium “undervalued” in business terms. (Stroemple founded Pac Star in Portland and has led business development overseas for other spin-off companies exporting in the Pacific Rim.)

Stroemple spent three years studying the history of glass art and did not buy his first Chihuly piece until 1990. In the years that followed, his collection and enthusiasm grew rapidly. He would often leave Portland at about 3am to be in Seattle at Chihuly’s Boathouse on Lake Union in time to observe the first morning blow.

Stroemple’s first purchases were from the Venetian series that Chihuly was working on with Lino Tagliapietra. He went on to acquire pieces that spanned several decades of Chihuly’s artistic career. About the Portland exhibit and his collection, Stroemple said: “This is not an overview of an entire career, but is simply in my opinion….more reflective of the private man than the artist impresario most people know.”

The earliest works in the collection (although not the earliest acquired) were the Irish Cylinders that Dale completed in 1975 at the Rhode Island School of Design. They included text and drawing transfers, a highly experimental technique in studio glass at that time, done with Flora Mace and Seaver Leslie. These were literally the last pieces Chihuly blew before the 1976 auto accident that left him blind in one eye and affected his depth perception.

Later in their relationship, Stroemple negotiated purchase of the Irish Cylinders with the reluctant artist as a way of keeping the 44 pieces together. As with many art collectors and patrons over the centuries, Chihuly and Stroemple became friends and Stroemple and Chihuly both reportedly enjoyed the “art of the deal”.

*Sources: The 1997 PAM exhibit publication (available in the Docent Room library) and a 12-9-97 Seattle Times article by Robin Updike.