Crystal Valley is the place where modern art glass and glass jewellery were born. It was a real revolution. After all, it was here that Czech glass artists were the first in the world to conceptually create unique original works equal to the works of sculptors and painters. They elevated glass to a material similar in artistic merit to stone, metal, canvas or precious stones. Today, dozens of world-famous glass artists live and work here. Many others, including foreign ones, find capable collaborators in the local glassworks, workshops and studios.

Anna Polanská

Graduate of engraved glass at the glass school in Kamenický Šenov. She then studied at the UMPRUM in Prague, first in the studio of Prof. Kurt Gebauer (sculpture) and then Prof. Marian Karel (glass in architecture). She not only designs her own glass works, but also finishes them herself by cutting, gluing and other techniques.

Jan Hásek

Czech sculptor, glass engraver, medallist, jeweller, high school teacher and currently director of the SUPŠS in Železný Brod.

Jan Schindler

In his free work Jan Schindler uses commonly available utilitarian, preferably drinking glass. He does not avoid glass objects with manufacturing defects, one could even say that he seeks them out, or uses waste objects and gives them a second life. The author does not consider these objects, treated with his engraving, to be untouchable works of art, on the contrary, he approaches them with rational civility. Jan Schindler, a native of Turnov, living and working in Jablonec nad Nisou and teaching in Železný Brod, aims to rehabilitate the technique of engraving on glass in competition with the industrial techniques of sandblasting and etching.

Kateřina Krausová

She graduated from the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Železný Brod and the University of Arts and Crafts in Prague, in the Glass Studio, under the guidance of Professor Vladimír Kopecký. Since the age of 14 I have been working with glass as an artistic medium. Creates original glass objects, paintings, design glass and glass jewellery.

Ladislav Průcha

Studies: 1994-1997 Secondary Vocational Glass School, Nový Bor (glass painting); 1997-2001 Secondary Industrial Glass School, Nový Bor (glass painting department); 2001-2003 J. E. Purkyně University, Faculty of Applied Arts and Design, Ústí nad Labem (glass studio, Ilja Bílek); 2003-2009 University of Applied Arts in Prague (glass studio, 2003-2008 prof. Vladimír Kopecký, 2008-2009 Rony Plesl).

Since 2008 Střední uměleckoprůmyslová škola sklářská, Kamenický Šenov (pedagogue, 2008-2010 artistic head of the department of engraved glass, since 2010 artistic head of the department of design of light objects).

Ludmila Šikolová

‘What's in your head, no one can take away.’

In her free work, Ludmila Šikolová focuses on jewellery, which is for her a means of artistic expression. She has exhibited her jewellery in the Czech Republic and abroad in group and solo exhibitions, for example at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec, the Museum of Glass and Costume Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou, the Regional Gallery of the Highlands in Jihlava and the Czech Centre in Munich, Bavaria. Together with other Czech jewellers, she also presented a cross-section of her work in Athens, Greece.

Marta Havlíčková

Her crystal bowls can be found in the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec. One of the vases belongs to the Municipal Museum in Železný Brod and the smoke vase is from the Glass without borders symposium in Poland.

Martin Grosman

In addition to being a Master of Crystal, Martin is also an artist, designer, graphic designer, illustrator and singer. But he is also an educator, creating objects and jewelry that respond to socially pressing issues. His work is visually idiosyncratic, as he says, for some it can represent a frontal assault on the emotions.

Martin Hlubuček

The artist and teacher combines glass craft skills with free sculptural art. He ended 2014 with successful exhibitions in Paris and Jablonec nad Nisou. And in 2015 his Buoys, along with works by five other glass artists, were presented by Kuzebauch Gallery in the exhibition Slow! Glass! in Frankfurt.

Martin Pouzar

SWEET BIJOUX

for the exhibition ‘Sweet France’

necklace

optical glass beads, 60 000 cubic zirconia, 2021

‘Sweet France’ - an exhibition of Czech glass jewellery and costume jewellery at the Czech Centre in Paris. For this exhibition I created a long-planned necklace called ‘SWEET BIJOUX’. The necklace consists of twelve glass beads with a diameter of 40 mm. Each glass bead is set with 5000 0.8mm diameter cubic zirconia in Pink, in The Alpha Round Brilliant cut, produced by Preciosa. In total, there are 60,000 cubic zirconia in the necklace... The metal parts are made of stainless steel.

GALAXIE I

for the ‘Universe’ exhibition

bracelets

brass, stainless steel, 20,000 cubic zirconia, 2022

GALAXIE II

for the exhibition ‘Universe’

bracelets

brass, stainless steel, 20 000 pieces of zircons, 2022

The bracelets ‘Galaxie I’ and ‘Galaxie II’ created for the exhibition entitled ‘VESMIR - Contemporary Studio Glass and Jewellery’. The exhibition was organized in 2022 by the Museum of Glass and Jewellery in Jablonec nad Nisou. The bracelets are made of brass and each has around 20,000 pieces of synthetic stones from Preciosa with a diameter of 2 mm in the colours Sapphire Blue and Black.

Milan Handl

He is a Czech glass artist born in 1952 in Příbram. He currently lives and works in Polevsko.

Pavel Kopřiva

He is a conceptual and glass artist. He studied jewellery at the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Jablonec nad Nisou and glass at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.

He studied at Pilchuck Glass School in the USA. He taught at Corning Glass Studio in the USA and in Marinha Grande in Portugal. In 2007, he became the head of the Interactive Media Studio at the Faculty of Art and Design, UJEP Ústí nad Labem. His main interest is the combination of techniques, especially glass with new media. He has been researching the use of nanofibres and computer-controlled light in combination with mirrors.

He has participated in the famous international glass symposia held in Nový Bor since the 1980s. He represented the Czech Republic at the prestigious contemporary art exhibition Manifesta1 in Rotterdam and at the Moscow Biennale. Since 2014 he has been the director of the SUPŠS in Kamenický Šenov.

Petr Stacho

He is a glass artist and painter working in Kamenický Šenov and Ústí nad Labem. After graduating from the UMPRUM in Prague (Glass Art under Profs. Svoboda and Kopecký), he has been freelancing and since 2007 has been teaching at the prestigious Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Kamenický Šenov, the oldest of its kind in the world /in 2026 it will celebrate its 170th anniversary/, of which Petr Stacho is also a proud graduate.

Stanislava Grebeníčková

She began with painted glass, densely shaped and partially finished objects and design before deciding to make fused glass sculpture. In some of her objects she combines fused and ground glass with polished granite. She also creates glass jewelry related to her fused sculptures in artistic concept.

Václav Řezáč

In his works, the Czech glass artist builds a relationship between precision and chance - proving that discipline does not negate chance and that chance itself can be a way to tune in to the world around us. By combining two distinct techniques, the vitality of the glass on the glass pipe interacts with the cool precision of the glass being cast into form. For Rezac, glass is a material of random mutations and precisely calculated processes; it is hot and cold, liquid and solid. His works create shapes oscillating between liquid and solid states, attempting to materialize what would otherwise remain immaterial.

Jakub Petr

The artist as a tireless experimenter and technologist. Jakub builds his objects primarily on innovative technological and production processes. He comes from the centre of glass production, from the region around Železný Brod, where he continued the work of his father, glassmaker Zdeněk Petr. In his work he does not limit himself to dimensions or medium.

Using centrifugal force, he has achieved the production of elegant glass objects formed only by kinetic movement. Movement plays a constant role in his work. In the art installation Toroid, Jakub works with light and rotation instead of glass, creating colourful optical effects that, thanks to their high speed, transform into visually impressive shapes in the eyes of the viewer. Among the more utilitarian objects, his tea service made of thin boiling glass or the minimalist Kanopa vase stand out.

Jiří Tesař

He is an artistic glass engraver who has won numerous awards.

Gifted with artistic talent, he applies to study at the SUPŠ of Glass in Železný Brod. Here he encounters not only engraved glass, the field he has chosen for his studies, but also glassmaking for the first time in his life. He does not come from a glassmaking family. In a relatively short period of time he became so fond of engraved glass, which is actually a very demanding technique, that it became his love for life.

Lucie Tesařová

Artistic glass engraver, restorer. Holder of a licence of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic for restoration of Venetian mirrors.

She has many years of experience in the field of engraved glass. In the past, she has cooperated with a renowned restorer of Venetian mirrors, whose work she continues with her independent activity. She carries out repairs using traditional methods, using classical glassmaking techniques that ensure the authenticity of the restoration of historical mirrors.

Together with her husband, Jiří Tesar, who is also a glass engraver, she works in a studio in Semily.

NATĚLO

The NATĚLO art group comes from Nový Bor and is engaged in the production of original jewellery made of glass, silver and precious stones, winding beads and costume jewellery. Five artists are involved in the creation of jewellery, each of whom uses her own technique and has her own distinctive style.