I recently stumbled across an old New York Times article detailing a lawsuit Dale Chihuly filed against two other glass artist for copyright infringement. He accuses Bryan Rubino, a contractor and employee of his for 14 years, and Robert Kaindl of intentionally copying the forms and color inspirations for his seaforms.

In court filings, lawyers for the glass artists wrote that Mr. Chihuly would "often ask Mr. Rubino to come up with something for Dale Chihuly to review and purchase for Chihuly Inc."

"Chihuly is not the source of inspiration for a substantial number of glass artwork carrying the Chihuly mark," they wrote

"Just because he was inspired by the sea does not mean that no one else can use the sea to make glass art," said Bryan Rubino, "If anything, Mother Nature should be suing Dale Chihuly."

Chihuly refutes these statements saying, "He (Rubino) was an excellent craftsman" with little vision of his own and later asking, "You think I would ever let Rubino decide what something looks like?"

Unfortunately the Times version of this story leaves out a lot of important details, never even mentioning the second artists name or his role in the law suit. Thankfully the St. Petersburg Times paints a clearer picture. It seems the second artist is Robert Kaindl, hired Rubino because of his past experience as an assistant to Chihuly. More specifically he hired Rubino specifically because he wanted to produce very similiar work to what Chihuly was producing.

You be the judge, click on the image to find out which is Chihuly's and which is Kaindl's