Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: gaspy1 on February 24, 2014, 09:18:15 PM
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Pat(ricia) Esch was one of the pioneering USA glass artists, a classmate of Sam Herman's in Harvey Littleton's course at Wisconsin in 1963. So I was pleased to buy this piece recently, signed Esch 89. Problem is, I have since discovered that Pat Esch gave up glass in 1974 to become a pastry chef.
So my question is, who made this piece and where? Can anyone help, or suggest where I might find out?
Stuart in New Zealand
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Eisch?
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Yes, it could be Eisch - there is a dot there over what might be an 'i', or part of an elaborate 'E'. It was sold as being by Patricia Esch, which is why I went down that track, but it could well be Eisch.
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Wow, I just Googled Eisch, having not heard the name before. Could this be a piece by Erwin Eisch, another Littleton contemporary?
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Hi Stuart,
Here is another specimen and earlier (1979). It is 10cm high by 10cm diameter. The photo does not do justice to the luminous and iridescent quality like snake skin around the rim.
I've always assumed it was from the Eisch family factory in Germany, and wondered fancifully about the connections to the internationally-renowned artist Erwin Eisch as maker or designer (rather than simply a shareholder in the family business). Any one able to clarify?
Trevor
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Kia ora, Trevor. It is a bit curious for a couple of Antipodeans to be discussing a German / US glassmaker! I suggest the signature on your piece is indeed the same, and mine is also small, just a shade over 10cm.
The German / US Eisch glass factory could be a source, but they do seem from their websites to be a bit more production oriented. That indisuptable source Wikipedia says of Erwin Eisch's work:
Although many of Eisch's pieces of the 1960s and '70s was rooted in functional forms such as the vase, the bottle, the pitcher and the stein, the usefulness of these vessels was never Eisch's goal. "The purely plastic form, with glass as medium, was a means of art free of an end," he wrote.
Wiki continues: Eisch described his own glass forms of the sixties and seventies as "poetic or pictorial realism." He made clear that such a realism did not rely on observable fact, but on his inner reality; his fantasies. As important as his reliance on fantasy was to shaping his art, his unwillingness to compromise personal vision to appeal to the marketplace was just as vital. Therefore his early pitchers, vases and teapots are so eccentrically shaped as to seem to be in the process of becoming, rather than being, commonplace objects. Unique and imperfect as Eisch's forms are, it is not much of a step for their creator to anthropomorphize them. Eisch said, "From a glowing inert mass must emerge things of beauty that are endowed with speech. A talent of innovating, creating animatedly, and the breath to blow are requisites. Without blowing nothing happens."
That seems a bit grandiose for my little bottle, which is also later than the period they are talking about. But there must be people on this Board who know more than I (or you, with respect) about this, even if they may be asleep at present. Here's hoping for some enlightenment.
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There are quite a few previous messages on the Board discussing Erwin Eisch and Glashutte Eisch, including styles and signatures. They have mostly been transferred to another folder, so any search is best made at the top of the directory tree. Here are two of the more interesting ones:
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,50289.msg288363.html#msg288363
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,34108.msg185520.html#msg185520
Trevor
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Lots of good information there, thanks Trevor. There seems to be a suggestion that Erwin signed himself E.Eisch, while the pieces he designed for the factory, like yours and mine, from the 'Poetry in Glass' collection are signed just Eisch. That seems more likely. So I don't have a piece by the master himself, just one of his designs. But I'll treasure it nonetheless.
Thanks for your help.