Hans Godo Frabel

Hans Godo Frabel was born in Jena, East Germany in 1941. He was the third child in a family with five children. The tumultuous political climate in existence after WWII necessitated a family migration to a small city called Wertheim in West Germany, where Frabel’s father opened a scientific glass factory with a business partner. After moving a few times, the family ended up in Mainz am Rhein, a much larger city in West Germany, where Frabel’s father obtained a position as a controller at the Jena Glaswerke. Frabel did not enjoy school, and when 15 his father enrolled him into a “Lehrausbildung Program” (a traineeship) as a scientific glassblower at the prestigious Jena Glaswerke in Mainz, West Germany. Within 3 years, Frabel received his “Gehilfenbrief, ” an apprenticeship diploma, showing that he had mastered the trade of scientific glass blowing. In his spare time, he had the opportunity to focus on his real passion, art, and attended different art classes, to learn how to paint and draw.

In 1965 he came to the United States and settled in Atlanta. There he obtained a position at the Georgia Institute of Technology in its scientific glass blowing laboratory. There he also continued his art studies at Emory University and Georgia State University.

While working at Georgia Tech, Frabel’s creative talents were often sought after by professors and acquaintances alike to create crystal glass sculptures as gifts for friends, partners and business associates. With so many people enjoying the beauty of his glass sculptures, Frabel felt strengthened to continue his quest to become an artist.

In 1968, Frabel established his own glass studio in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the next 40 years, he would follow in accordance with the European tradition of apprentice and mentoring studio master: as the master artist he would pass his skills on to a handpicked group of apprentices, who after many years of training would become master artists in their own right.

In the 1960’s glass was not considered a serious art medium and artists were not utilizing the beauty and diversity that the techniques of flame worked glass offers to create unique art pieces.

Until that time, glass designers had always been giving their designs to factory glass workers, who would then try to create their design in glass. Harvey Littleton and Hans Godo Frabel were among the first artists who chose glass as their art medium and decided to create glass art with their own hands.

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