The Glass Benders Hall of Fame is located at Flickinger Glassworks, Inc. It honors some of the glass benders and supporters who came before us. These gentlemen were our mentors. They taught us the unique skills required to bend glass. We at Flickinger Glassworks, Inc. take great pride in our work knowing it is built on their solid foundation.

Maurice Heaton  -  K Stone Flickinger  -  Sydney Cash  -   John P. Morgan  -   Hans Deutsch

One of the truly professional American glass artists, Maurice Heaton was a third generation glass worker. He was born in 1900 in Neuchatel, Switzerland and came to the U.S. with his father, Clement Heaton, in 1914 and worked on stained glass church windows. In 1933, Heaton began working with enamel on glass, and over a period of many years perfected this skill. His early pieces were lighting fixtures, bowls, and dishes, for which he formed molds out of steel. By 1947 he had invented a process of fusing crushed crystals of enamel to the under surface of the glass, and in 1961 he adapted the technique to lamination, whereby colored enamel is fused between as many as six layers of glass. In 1920 he moved to Rockland County, New York where he remained, active and relentlessly pursuing his craft until his death in 1989.

Maurice Heaton's work has been exhibited in most of the major museums of the world, as well as being displayed in international ceramic and glass shows and in numerous one-man exhibitions. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Corning Glass Museum, and the American Craft Museum.

A true pioneer, Heaton's work was described by reviewers as "entirely different from any of the familiar types of craftsmanship in glass," and as "modern art with a craft based on engineering."

K Flickinger was born in Lodi, Ohio and was raised on the family farm in nearby Medina. As a young man, he attended Ashland College. It was during his time there that he learned how to fly airplanes. During World War II he was a Navy bomber pilot stationed in Morocco. After the war, K became an insurance professional and was president of Flickinger Insurance in Norwalk, Ohio for 29 years.

When Flickinger Glassworks, Inc. was founded in 1986, K was a major supporter. Over the years he provided sound business advice, financial support and the much-needed moral support necessary for a small business to succeed. As a result of his generosity, understanding, and guidance he played a large part in continuing the custom glass bending tradition.

Sculptor Sydney Cash has been working with glass as a primary material for twenty-five years. His work has been exhibited internationally and is in many private and public collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art and the Corning Glass Museum. He has been a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. The Metropolitan Transit Authority awarded him a commission for a series of large optical panels in the Queensborough Plaza Elevated Subway Station.

John P. Morgan came from a long line of glass craftsmen dating back to his great uncle George Morgan, who came to the U.S. from Wales in 1832 to establish a stained glass business with his brothers. Family documents indicate that several of the first generation of American Morgan's were killed by falling from scaffolding while installing windows in a church.

The business was passed down from father to son until it reached John P. Morgan's father, also named George, who changed its focus from stained glass to glass bending and moved the shop to Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn in 1916. John P. Morgan eventually inherited his father's business and did specialized glass bending in ovens for Tiffany lamp shades, antique restorations and other custom designs. Hand-crafted steel molds were manufactured for each of his custom glass bending orders.

Morgan & Co. was dismantled in 1985 when John Morgan retired to Florida where he died in a fatal auto accident in 1992. At his retirement, many of these unique molds were bought by Flickinger Glassworks to carry on the Morgan's tradition of customized glass bending.

Hans Deutsch's involvement in glass started at Instituto Politecnico Nacional in Mexico City in 1949 with his professional thesis regarding the chemical resistance of different types of glass. During the 50's he completed post-graduate work at the Tecnische Universitat in Munchen, and worked at a glass factory in Frauenau, Germany. In 1961 he began bending glass commercially at Nemo Glass S.A., in Mexico City, and for the next 15 years, he designed, manufactured and marketed a complete line of bent glass for lighting fixtures. Nemo Glass created more than 250 models of ceiling shades, wall sconces, and bathroom units. In addition, they successfully introduced and marketed a variety of decorative bent glass giftware and promotional items.

In 1977, he became General Manager of Bent Glassworks, in Queens, New York. For 10 years, he manufactured and marketed a complete line of lighting and giftware, produced components for Tiffany lamps, and developed specialized bent glass for such uses as china cabinets, tiles for NYC subway station, storefronts and greenhouses. They worked with a variety of ovens including rotaries, continuous oval tunnels, and a leer.

From 1987, he was an active consultant at several glass production facilities in the U.S. and abroad, including Mexico and China. He assisted various glass manufacturers in increasing production efficiency, modernizing plants through the construction and installation of new equipment and ovens, developing modification and adaptations to existing units, designing new manufacturing lines, and specializing in problem solving. Flickinger Glassworks' present facility was designed by Hans in 1990.