23 Facts About Erwin Eisch

Erwin Eisch is considered a founder of the studio glass movement in Europe.

Erwin Eisch was the eldest of six children of glass engraver Valentin Erwin Eisch and his wife, Therese Hirtreiter.

The family lived in the town of Frauenau in Bavaria, where Valentin Erwin Eisch was employed as a master engraver at the glass factory of Isidor Gistl.

Erwin Eisch's father supplemented his income by bringing work home to engrave on Sundays.

Erwin Eisch was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1945 at age 18.

Erwin Eisch saw three months of service in Czechoslovakia and Denmark before he was taken prisoner by the British.

From 1946 to 1948 Erwin Eisch worked at this trade in the family's cutting and engraving shop while studying at the school of glassmaking in nearby Zwiesel.

Erwin Eisch returned to the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in 1956, where he continued his studies in sculpture and painting.

Erwin Eisch gravitated toward social criticism and anti-art establishment actions.

In 1960, with his future wife, Margarete "Gretel" Stadler and the artist Max Strack, Erwin Eisch formed the group RADAMA.

Erwin Eisch left the Munich art scene soon after the scandal.

In November 1967 Erwin Eisch returned to the University of Wisconsin as a visiting professor.

Erwin Eisch later resorted to enameling the exteriors of his pieces to strengthen his forms.

Unique and imperfect as Erwin Eisch's forms are, it is not much of a step for their creator to anthropomorphize them.

In using different cold-working techniques to create imagery on each piece in his series, along with distorting the hot glass sculpture as it came from the mold, Erwin Eisch made virtually identical mold-blown pieces into individual, unique statements.

Erwin Eisch first tried his hand at vitreography during a visit to Littleton's studio in 1981.

Erwin Eisch was one of the first artists invited to engage in printmaking at Littleton Studios.

Erwin Eisch brought his background in glass engraving to bear on the vitreograph plate.

Erwin Eisch produced six intaglio prints in four days during that visit.

Erwin Eisch lectured at the XIII International Congress on Glass in London, England, the World Crafts Conference in Dublin, Ireland, the World Crafts Conference in Kyoto, Japan, the Glass Art Society Conferences in New York City and in Corning, New York.

Erwin Eisch was an organizer of the First and Second International Glass Symposia in Frauenau, Germany in 1982 and 1985.

Together with Mayor Alfons Hannes, Erwin Eisch was a co-founder of the Frauenau Glass museum, which opened in 1975 in the presence of international glass artists.

Erwin Eisch died in Zwiesel on 25 January 2022, at the age of 94.