GLASRIJK's Leading Artist 2026: Frank van den Ham

In 2026, Glasrijk Tubbergen will celebrate its thirtieth edition—a jubilee that we will celebrate with a special leading artist: Frank van den Ham (1952), glass artist, writer, and traveler at heart.

In his book “The Boy Who Went on a Journey,” he describes how his life's path began on Transvaalstraat in Amsterdam and led him out into the world via Amersfoort, driven by a desire “for roads that would take him away from the mundane.”. 

He has now been working with glass for over forty years, a material that, alongside writing, he considers a language he speaks. Buy Frank van den Ham's e-book here, in PDF format: click here.

His fascination began in the Tyrolean glass town of Rattenberg (Austria), where as a boy he stood spellbound before the shop windows of glass engravers and bought his first engraved piece of glass – a liqueur glass with an “F” etched into it, which he still keeps.

From his early love for glass, he developed into an internationally acclaimed artist who experiments with fusing and kiln casting; his work has been featured on the cover of Neues Glas, the leading German magazine for glass art, among other publications.

Frank divided his time and work for a long time between Europe, Indonesia, and South Africa, where he not only created his own work but also initiated projects focused on glass art and education.

Nowadays, he lives and works in Bali, where he built a traditional wooden house with a small glass studio; “glass and writing are languages I speak,” he writes about it.
That attitude is reflected both in his work and in his life motto: although we as human beings are “incredibly small,” “our ability to make the world a little more beautiful should not be underestimated.”. 

For a concise impression of his work, click here.

Identity as a garden, glass as a mirror

Frank refuses to pin himself down to one identity, one label, one color. In one of the texts from the book, he states that he will have an identity, but would rather not go beyond “I am me.”.

Why, he wonders, would he choose one shade out of “ten thousand colors” to carry as a banner? He describes himself as “a garden full,” with decent shrubs, a single tree, seed, and weeds diligently trying to take over.

“My name is Legio,” he concludes, refusing to be reduced to a single facet or be drawn to one side because of nationality, skin color, or preference. His work also resonates with that broad, humanistic approach.

His glass objects are not unambiguous statements, but layered forms in which light, color, and transparency reveal themselves in ever-changing ways, just as people are more than a single label.

“Let humanity be my identity,” he writes, and that humanity—vulnerable, searching, with humor and self-deprecation—forms the quiet foundation of everything he creates.

Bridges of Glass and Words in Tubbergen

Frank's artistry is not a list of achievements, but a series of “vulnerably broken bridges” that he carefully and diligently builds.
In a poem at the end of his book, he writes:

“More than anything, I cherish / fragile bridges I have built /—bound with the wood of despair / with hope and deep longing— / precarious paths stretching out / toward the unknown and the far away.”.

Those rules could almost serve as the motto for GLASRIJK Tubbergen 2026.
In the Town Hall on Raadhuisplein in Tubbergen his multifaceted artistry is brought to life through glass and language, as a series of bridges between viewer and artist, between the present and memory, between Tubbergen and all the places in the world where he traveled and worked.

Visitors will not only see the sophistication of his glass, but also the stories and thoughts that preceded it: about the boy from Transvaal Street, about Rattenberg, about the search for small goodness in a big world.

GLASRIJK offers him the ideal setting for that encounter. It is a place where glass is not merely a material, but a metaphor, where light and refraction remind us of how small our place in the universe is—and at the same time, how vast the potential is to “make the world a little more beautiful.”.

Frank says about his work and life:

“Although incredibly small, our ability to make the world a little more beautiful should not be underestimated.”.

That invitation is reflected in every piece on display at GLASRIJK.