GLASS WITH CLASS. KROSNO`S DESIGNERS

GLASS WITH CLASS. KROSNO`S DESIGNERS

Marian Fugiel / Anna Grabowska-Szczur / Patrik Illo / Agnieszka Leśniak-Banasiak / Joanna Lorens / Jerzy Maraj / Wszewłod Sarnecki / Jan Siedlecki / Beata Szajna / Janina Szopa / Maria Wierdak / Magdalena Wójcik

29.10.2023– 27.01.2024 – ul. Garbarska 24, Cracov

For 100 years, hand-formed glass from Krosno has enjoyed unwavering popularity in Poland and abroad. It is valued for its excellent quality and designs that follow current fashion. It was, or still is, present in almost every Polish home and in millions of homes around the world. 

The products of Krosno Glassworks have won more than 100 prestigious awards at competitions in Poland and abroad. Reaching markets in more than 70 countries around the world, they are among the most recognisable Polish goods. The list of the Krosno brand’s most famous ‘clients’ includes Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, King Juan Carlos of Spain, and the Imperial Court of Japan, the shah of Iran Reza Pahlavi, and Arab sheikhs. Krosno glassware also finds its way to hotels and restaurants around the world as well as airlines, including Singapore Airlines, and has recently been present on board PLL LOT in Business and Premium Economy classes. 

No wonder, then, that for many years now the world’s leading glassmakers have been commissioning the Krosno glassworks to produce their leading collections, as well as entrusting local designers with the development of new designs. These include interiors market leaders such as Lehmann and Crate & Barrel, Duka, Reserved Home, and spirits distillers. However, Krosno glass is more than just a beautiful page written in the history of Polish industry. Seemingly ordinary decorative or utilitarian objects produced in the Krosno glassworks were, and still are, works of functional art. This is because their creators are talented glass designers employed by the glassworks’ design office. 

There is no way to give the exact number of artists of designs for the products from the Krosno glassworks. They included not only designers employed at the glassworks or commissioned by it, but also students of the Department of Ceramics and Glass at Wrocław’s State Higher School of Visual Arts and later the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, who were carrying out their student internships and apprenticeships at the Krosno plant. 

At “Glass with Class. Designers from Krosno”, we present the work of only twelve of the designers employed at the Krosno glassworks. The selection of twelve names, out of dozens, was not easy – 

a major constraint was the availability of the works and their correct identi cation. Despite the fact that there are thousands of glasses designed and manufactured in Krosno Glass S.A.’s huge pattern shop, none of them have any information on their design history: the author of the design, the date of production or the awards the design has received, and there have been quite a few of these in the glassworks’ output. 

Wading through the clutter of shelves filled with glass forms and  finding the work of specific designers on them was an unprecedented undertaking. It could not have been realised without the help of the glassworks’ current designers: Hanna Grabowska-Szczur, Joanna Lorens and Beata Szajna. 

We hope that our project will kick-start the organisation of the huge collection of glass designed and produced in the Krosno glassworks and, in the future, their digitisation. 

In fact, to date there has been no study presenting the work of the designers employed at the Krosno glassworks, currently: Krosno Glass S.A.. A company that over the 100 years of its existence has created the history of Polish glass design. 

Anita Bialic, Hanna Wajda-Lawera – curators