Erwin Eisch

When he was nineteen, Erwin Eisch was apprenticed in the glass engraving workshop of his father, Valentin Eisch. He went on to study at the School for Glassmaking in Zweisel and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. When he was twenty-three Erwin, his parents and two brothers started a glass factory in Frauenau. Within four years Eisch returned to school to study sculpture. Upon his return to Frauenau he set up a studio in the factory's basement where he could create sculptures in glass. In 1962 Harvey Littleton, excited to hear of a fellow artist who was using glass as a fine art medium, visited Eisch. The two started a friendship that continues to this day.

Eisch began exhibiting his glass work in 1962. His work has been seen in shows in Germany, Austria, the United States, Japan, Czechoslovakia, France and Switzerland. Eisch's work can be found in many museums in Germany and in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Switzerland and The Netherlands. In the United States his work is in the collections of Corning Museum of Glass, Chazen Museum of Art (Madison, Wisconsin), Smithsonian Institution and The Toledo Museum of Art.