The Collections
During the building of the first glass museum, Alfons Hannes started to set up the museum collection from zero, with house collections in Frauenau, and with loans from private collectors and renowned museums. A comprehensive collecting policy, with purchases and donations of glasses and collections, as well as art works given by artists allowed the collection to grow to an international level over the years.
A central base for setting up the representative collection of modern studio glass was artists donations during the International Frauenau Glass Symposia, as well as the "Bavarian Forest Glass Prize", held 1984, 1988 and 1993, and, later, acquisitions from the benefit action "Helping Hands" (that allowed, amongst others, to buy works from renown artists from the benefit auctions of Bild-Werk Frauenau in 2003 and 2006).
At the time of the museum rebuilding, from 1999, targeted acquisitions and generous loans allowed gaps in the representation of European glass history to be filled.