Hammer and Nails, 1978
Glass, 12" x 6" x 9"
Faucet (In the Middle of the Night), 1979
Glass, 10 1/2" x 8" x 3"
Light Bulb, 1979
Glass, 11" x 4 1/2"
Hammer and Nails, 1980
Glass, 9" x 12" x 6"
Hans Godo Fräbel was born in Jena, East Germany in 1941. He studied scientific glassblowing at Jena Glaswerke and took art classes at the Mainzer Kunstschule in Mainz, Germany. In 1965 he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he attended the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 1968 he established the Fräbel Studio in Atlanta. Today he is recognized as one of the world’s leading glass artists. He has done commissions for Absolut Vodka, the Carter Center, the Corning Museum of Glass, and the Smithsonian Institution, among others. Fräbel’s delicate and innovative sculptural compositions begin with heated borosilcate rods that are shaped with a hot lamp or by hand. His subjects, often rendered at life-size scale, encompass the human figure, tools, birds, flowers, and water droplets.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: the Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.