Jan Frydrych


Jan Frydrych, is a Czech glass artist who sculpts using optical glass.

Early life and education

Frydrych grew up in Šluknov, a Czech town in Northern Bohemia notable for its glassmaking. He gained his glass education in Nový Bor and also during his longterm cooperation with :cs:Václav Cigler|Václav Cigler and Stanislav Libenský. During his career he also has taught in glass schools in France, Japan and the United States.

Artistic career

His first designs of artistic objects were created under the influence of the history of Czech glass. Using designs for creations of the late 1970s, he started to use optical glass. This material required a different technical approach, which combined traditional techniques of cold grinding with techniques of handling optical glass for technical purposes.
In the 1980s he extended this to laminates, inserting blue glass sheets and metal microlayers. These techniques aimed to represent illusory inner architectural spaces and the so-called fourth dimension. These images are, for purposes of lucidity, mostly composed of basic geometric forms such as spheres, cylinders, cubes, and cones. Simultaneously the viewer is able to view the objects according to their own perspective, depending on various angles of observation and the play of light.
In last years Frydrych also creates custom chronometers. These are made of the same optical glass used by the Hubble telescope. In 2017 Jan Frydrych teamed with Thomas Mercer company to create an exclusive range of marine and table chronometers.

Work in architecture, exhibitions, collections

Frydrych’s artworks, some of which were created with other Czech glass artists such as Bořek Šípek, Václav Cígler, René Roubíček, and Ivo Rozsypal, have been exhibited in Florence, Hamburg, and Winchester Cathedral in the United Kingdom. In the Czech Republic Frydrych created a glass cross, which is part of :cs:Nový kostel |New church in Litomyšl city. A large prism consisting of ten layers of special plate glass, with their edges grinded and polished, was used to create this cross.
He has also carried out solo and collective exhibitions in Studio Glass Gallery, London, Gallery Chapelotte, Luxembourg, Chappell Gallery, New York, Art Basel Miami, Superyacht Design Week London, Monaco Yacht Show, Dubai International Boat Show in Marine art gallery and at the Qatar International Boat Show. His works are in the collections of UMPRUM museum in Prague, Czech Republic and at the Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama, United States.

Awards