That same year, he was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant for his work in glass, as well as a Fulbright Fellowship.

[4] He traveled to Venice to work at the Venini factory on the island of Murano, where he first saw the team approach to blowing glass.

[7] After returning to the United States, Chihuly spent the first of four consecutive summers teaching at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine.

In 1969, he traveled to Europe, in part to meet Erwin Eisch in Germany and Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová in Czechoslovakia.

[4] Chihuly donated a portion of a large exhibit to his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, in 1997 and it is on permanent display in the Kohl Center.

[9] In 1983, Chihuly returned to his native Pacific Northwest where he continued to develop his own work at the Pilchuck Glass School, which he had helped to found in 1971.

Chihuly explained the change in a 2006 interview, saying "Once I stepped back, I liked the view", and said that it allowed him to see the work from more perspectives, enabling him to anticipate problems earlier.

[15][16] In 2006, Chihuly filed a lawsuit against his former longtime employee, glassblower Bryan Rubino, and businessman Robert Kaindl, claiming copyright and trademark infringement.

[20] Regina Hackett, a Seattle Post-Intelligencer art critic, provided a chronology of Chihuly's work during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s: For his exhibition in Jerusalem, in 1999–2000, in addition to the glass pieces, he had enormous blocks of transparent ice brought in from an Alaskan artesian well and formed a wall, echoing the stones of the nearby Citadel.

[27] The piece at the Bellagio, titled Fiori di Como, holds the Guinness World Record for largest glass sculpture.

[31] There is also one piece titled Blue River[32] in the Casino of the Sky at Mohegan Sun: Casino and Resort in Uncasville, CT.[33] The distinctive cobalt blue, silver and clear colored glass sculpture, measuring fourteen feet in width, soars twenty-five feet above visitors, creating a spectacular centerpiece.

Other large collections can be found at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg, Florida,[90] and Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle, Washington.