Michel Eltschinger, Master Glassmaker from Fribourg

A Life Dedicated to the Art of Light

In 1953, Michel Eltschinger (1938-2023) began an apprenticeship at Herbert Fleckner’s workshop in Fribourg. He received technical training from Joseph Keller, a former associate of the Atelier Kirsch & Fleckner (1894-1938), but it was from Yoki and Albert Chavaz that he learned the finer points of the “art of light”: the value of lead lines, the integration of stained glass into architecture, the choice of colours, their chromatic values, their intensity and the subtleties of shading. When he first opened his own workshop in 1968 in Villars-sur-Glâne, most of the artists he had worked with at Fleckner expressed their confidence by following him. As a neighbour of the Fleckner workshop, he continued to work in parallel for his former boss, particularly in the creation of stained-glass set in concrete, the so-called dalle de verre technique, in which he specialised.

Over the course of 70 years, Eltschinger worked with internationally renowned artists such as Alfred Manessier, Jean Bazaine, Jean Le Moal, Jan Elvire, Théodore Strawinsky, Sergio de Castro and Anselmo Francesconi, as well as leading Swiss and Fribourg artists such as Jean-François Comment, Gottfried Tritten, Albert Chavaz, Isabelle Tabin-Darbellay, Yoki (Émile Aebischer), Bruno Baeriswyl, Charly Cottet, Teddy Aeby, Bernard Schorderet and many others.

The works produced in collaboration with these national and international artists in Switzerland constitute a particularly important and emblematic corpus of 20th and early 21st century glass art. It is this body of work that we propose to study and inventory within the scope of this project, focusing on works of stained glass in public space. From a chronological perspective, we will be looking at the work produced by Michel Eltschinger from his early years at the Fleckner studio until his death in 2023.

Duration of the Project: 2025-2028