Glass engraver, studio glassmaker, artist * 1927 in Frauenau (DE)
In 1964 Erwin Eisch came to Harvey K. Littleton in Madison (WI), where studio glass pioneers from the USA and Europe practiced glass blowing in a garage. In 1965 Eisch brought the glassmaker Karl Paternoster to the universities of Madison and San José (CA). The skills of the East Bavarian glassmakers and Eisch’s artistic freedom are at the beginning of the international studio glass movement.
Erwin Eisch comes from a family of glass workers from Frauenau. After an apprenticeship in glass engraving, he studied sculpture and design at the Munich Art Academy, and from 1949 he helped to build the glass finishing workshop and later the Eisch glassworks. From 1952 he experimented artistically with free-form glass. From 1965 on, his studio glass furnace attracted glass artists from all over the world, while Eisch exhibited and taught internationally. He gave important impulses to the manufacture of glass, but at the same time turned more and more to painting.
