Erwin Eisch

Erwin Eisch ( born April 18, 1927 in Frauenau, Bayerischer Wald ) is a German glass artist.

Erwin Eisch is considered since the 1960s with Harvey Littleton as the founder of the international Studio Glass movement, as one of the first artists who began the glass as a medium of artistic expression. Today, his artistic focus is painting.

Life

Erwin Eisch was the eldest of six children of musicians and Glasgraveurs Valentin Eisch and his later wife Therese Hirtreiter. After the Second World War Valentin Eisch founded his own glassworks in Frauenau.

After training as a glass engraver in his father's workshop from 1946 to 1949 he studied until 1952 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich glass design, sculpture and interior architecture. In 1952 he returned to Frauenau back, built his family a 3- pot furnace and had his first contacts with liquid glass. From 1956 to 1959 he continued his studies in sculpture and painting in Munich.

During this time he was 1957-1959 founding member of the artist group SPUR, 1960, he ran together with his future wife Gretel Stadler and Max Strack cleavage of the artist group RADAMA.

1962 visited Harvey Littleton Frauenau, which Eisch received a first contact with the American studio glass movement. In 1964 he received an invitation to the first World Crafts Council to New York City and the first glass seminar with Harvey Littleton at the University of Wisconsin. In 1965 he founded Frauenau own glass studio. In the 1980s, Erwin Eisch organized with three times the International Glass Symposium in Frauenau.

In 1988 he founded together with other the "image - Frauenau ". He is since 1962 married to Gretel Stadler and has with her five children.

Erwin Eisch was instrumental in the concept and the opening of the Museum of Glass Frauenau in 1975. His friendly ties with the Stuttgart art historian Wolfgang Kermer is due to that its glass collection 1982 went to the museum as a gift. Because of disputes due to excess of expected construction costs of 1.4 million euros for a new museum building, he was awarded the 2007 honorary citizen certificate in the spring of 2009 to the community Frauenau back.

Teaching

• Since 1964 visiting professor in the U.S. and Europe
• Since 1988 teaching at the Summer Academy in Frauenau

Awards

Exhibitions, selection

Erwin Eisch was represented from 1959 to 2005 in over 150 exhibitions in Germany, Europe, North America and Japan.