Glass Fragments turn into Museum Objects 

27 January 2012

Last year, the Glasmuseum Hentrich acquired a large collection of archaeological glass fragments. Some of these fragments fit together; conservators at the Dusseldorf Conservation Centre are working on this task.

Simone Walker, trainee at the Conservation Centre, already succeeded with the rebirth of some of these glass vessels. Among others, a ribbed beaker on three bun feet has a special importance for our museum, because it is said to have been found in Dusseldorf. The glass is colorless and heavy, probably a lead crystal. Due to its archaeological context, the surfaces are matted and slightly iridized.

The shape of the vessel is typical for the baroque period during the 1st half of the 18th century. As a lead crystal, it may have been an import from The Netherlands. 

Berlin Glas e.V.

23 January 2012

There aren't many opportunities in Germany to watch live glass blowing (in North Rhine Westfalia there is e.g. the "Glashütte Gernheim"). However, the 9th of December saw the inauguration of the first public access hot glass studio in Berlin!

Centrally located in the "Parkhaus", Strassburger Str. 6-8, it offers the chance to watch artists blowing glass as well as courses and programs to learn this art oneself.

The non-for-profit project was founded by the gallerist Nadania Idriss and depends on donations.

Our congratulations to this brave and wonderful venture!

Stained Glass Panel, A. D. Copier, Leerdam, ca. 1929

Funds from the Tijmen Knecht and Helen M. Knecht-Drenth Foundation have made possible the acquisition of a rarity of Dutch glass design. Leaded glass windows are an unusual product of the Leerdam glass factory. The factory is known for its pioneering design of drinking glasses and vases, and produced stained glass only for a short period at the end of the 1920s. Subtle, mold-blown ribbing, iridized surfaces and craquelée are typical for the design work of Andries Dirk Copier (1901-1991). The panel's composition follows the example of the De Stijl art movement that was founded in The Netherlands in 1917.

At the age of 91, the Netherlandish glass artist died in Leerdam on 25 September 2011

29 September 2011

Floris Meydam has had a significant influence on post-war design of glass in The Netherlands. He began his career as a glass designer at the Leerdam factory in 1935. During the 1940s, he tought at the glass school in Leerdam, and became head of the glass school's design department in 1949. His first Unica-works are known since 1951: These works were designed and made directly at the furnace, in a dialogue between the designer and the glass blower.

Thanks to the generous donations by Tijmen Knecht and Helen Knecht-Drenth from The Netherlands, as well as due to the bequest by the German collector Winfried Drove, Glasmuseum Hentrich owns a large collection of glass art from The Netherlands, and in particular about 120 works by Floris Meydam. An exhibition of this part of the museum's collection is currently in planning.

The great Danish glass artist is dead

29 August 2011

The Danish ceramics and glass artist Finn Lynggaard (b. 1930) died on the 25th of August. His first experimental encounter with glass took place in 1970 while teaching in Toledo, Canada, Two years later he had his own glass workshop in Hørsholm, Zeeland, and became one of the most important European protagonists of the studio glass movement that spread from the United States. Together with his wife Tchai Munch he founded a glass studio in Ebeltoft, Jütland, and initiated the glass museum Ebeltoft that was founded in 1986. Here, he himself organized his great retrospective show for his 80th birtday last year.

The Glasmuseum Hentrich owns three of his works, which he made 1980 in Ebeltoft.

6 July, 2011

Two students who completed placements at Glasmuseum Hentrich independently of each other in 2009, have been – simultaneously – accorded the 2011 Research Award for Applied Art at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich.

The paper Johanna Cremer, from Cologne, completed for her MA, is entitled, ‘”Hola woher mit der Leimstangen”. Untersuchungen zu Vogelfängerhumpen aus Emailglas’ (‘“Ho! whence come you with the limed twigs”, Investigations on Fowler Tankards of enamelled glass’), and Sophia Dietrich of Leipzig has written her MA thesis on ‘Volkhard Precht. Unbemerkter Pionier des Studioglases in der DDR’ (‘V. P., the GDR’s unnoticed Pioneer of Studio Glass’). 

Congratulations to our two trainees, and we wish them all the best in their careers to come.

An important covered goblet, which was on loan to the Glasmuseum Hentrich since 1974, has been added to our permanent collection.

December 2010

The blue goblet with gold-painted decoration was made in Brandenburg (north-east Germany) about 1740–1750, at the beginning of the reign of King Frederic II of Prussia. Its precious colour, rounded shapes and gilding may have been the glassmakers' reaction against the competition of porcelain, which had its powerful rise during this period.

The goblet has been part of the collection von Zanthier; it was now acquired for the museum with a generous donation by the family foundation Schultz-von Schacky, Berlin.

For almost a year, Glasmuseum Hentrich parted from its most important glass vessels of the Middle Ages. Now they are back. 

February 2011 

46 precious objects from the Glasmuseum Hentrich's own collection as well as from the collection of Karl Amendt, which is on permanent loan at the Glasmuseum, where borrowed by The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, USA from April 2010 until this month. They formed part of a large exhibition on medieval glass, "Medieval Glass for Popes, Princes and Palaces". Dusseldorf contributed more than a third of the objects in the show, which comprised in total about 130 items on display.

The glass is back on display in the permanent gallery of Glasmuseum Hentrich.