Countdown to close Oct. 15; Chihuly Nights ends Sept. 30
Since its opening May 2, Chihuly in the Garden 2023 has been an attendance and membership boon for the Missouri Botanical Garden. As this stunning exhibition uniting art and nature prepares to close, the Garden is sharing surprising facts and numbers (so far) from the run. Daytime viewing of Chihuly in the Garden 2023 continues until Oct. 15. Due to popular demand, the Garden extended Chihuly Nights through Sept. 30, Thursday through Saturday nights.
Garden President, Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson, noted “Chihuly in the Garden 2023 is our most ambitious exhibition to date. We have been pleased to host the work of the legendary Dale Chihuly. His art, designed specifically for the botanical garden setting, captures the imagination. As these works are especially mesmerizing at night, we’re delighted to offer our Chihuly Nights experience.”
With weeks still to go in the exhibition’s run, the Garden is counting down to the close of Chihuly in the Garden 2023:
- One exhibition of the work of world-renowned artist Dale Chihuly presented on a grand scale and curated for the Missouri Botanical Garden.
- Thousands of pieces of blown glass forms in 20 dramatic installations throughout the Garden’s grounds.
- Estimated to be one of the all-time summer day attendance records, with nearly 300,000 daytime visitors.
- The Garden welcomed more than 10,000 new members, bringing the total to more than 50,000 members for the first time in the Garden’s history.
- A 20 percent increase in visitors’ use of mobility items, such as trams and scooters.
- While Saturday has been the most popular for Chihuly Nights, Thursday has been the second most popular.
- For shopping, Friday nights have been the most popular evenings and Sundays the most popular days in the Garden Gate Shop.
- The most sought-after items in the Shop have been glass birds (over 1,000 sold) and Chihuly puzzles (over 2,000 sold).
- Thousands dined in Sassafras Restaurant and Cafe for Chihuly Nights; 5,000 purchased dinner packages in advance.
Chihuly in the Garden 2023 is an expansive exhibition, drawing inspiration from the Garden’s landscape and using form and color to ignite joy. Chihuly’s work is sited in dialogue with its environment, enhancing the beauty of nature and amplifying the appreciation of the natural world. In addition to the installations throughout the Garden’s grounds, there is also an exhibit of smaller Chihuly works and drawings in the Garden’s Stephen and Peter Sachs Museum.
Chihuly Nights is a ticketed evening experience offers visitors a chance to see Chihuly in the Garden 2023 in a spectacular way, when illuminated at night. At Chihuly Nights, visitors enjoy live music and entertainment as they stroll the Garden to take in the illuminated works. Food and drinks are available for purchase. Doors open at 6:00 pm.
“We have been overwhelmed by the positive response to Chihuly Nights, with evening visitors telling us it’s an otherworldly experience, even a ‘surreal dream’,” says Vickie Campbell, vice president of visitor operations for the Garden. “That’s it was so important to extend Chihuly Nights to give as many people as possible the opportunity to experience it.”
Hailed as one of the most important artists of the 21st century, Chihuly has transformed glass into a multidimensional artform. An advocate for beauty and institutions, Chihuly began working with botanical gardens in 2001, bringing art lovers outside and inspiring garden lovers to see art in a new light. His renown has continued to grow nationally and globally, most recently as the subject of a Smithsonian Channel documentary.
Lelia and David Farr are the presenting sponsor of Chihuly in the Garden 2023. Other lead sponsors include Edward Jones, Schnuck Markets, Inc. and Scott Schnuck, and Steward Family Foundation.
Daytime visitation to Chihuly in the Garden 2023 is included with Missouri Botanical Garden general admission. Chihuly Nights ticket prices range from $8 to $25.
This exhibition is organized by Missouri Botanical Garden in cooperation with Chihuly Studio. The artwork on view is protected by copyright and any copying is expressly prohibited.
The Missouri Botanical Garden is located at 4344 Shaw Blvd. in south St. Louis, accessible from Interstate 44 at the Vandeventer exit and from Interstate 64 at the Kingshighway North and South exit. Free parking is available on site and two blocks west at the corner of Shaw and Vandeventer.
For more information visit mobot.org/chihuly
The Missouri Botanical Garden’s mission is “to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life.” Today, 164 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science, conservation, education and horticultural display.
About Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly is an American artist who transforms spaces with experiments in color, light, transparency, and form. He is known for mounting exhibitions and large-scale architectural installations around the world and for revolutionizing the studio glass movement. Chihuly works with a variety of media including glass, paint, charcoal, neon, ice, and Polyvitro, and his work is included in more than 200 museum collections worldwide, including Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Corning Museum of Glass. Major exhibitions include Chihuly Over Venice (1995-96), Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem (1999), de Young Museum in San Francisco (2008), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2011), Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (2012), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada (2013), Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada (2016), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas (2017), Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands (2018), Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, U.K (2019), and Gardens by the Bay, Singapore (2021).