Giselbert Hoke

_{Warnsdorf 1927 - 2015 Klagenfurt}

Giselbert Hoke was born as the second of six children in Northern Bohemia. He soon began to develop an interest in blacksmithing, but was severely wounded in World War I as a 17-year-old and subsequently lost his right arm.
After war captivity, the new life of Hoke began by graduating from the Academy, where he began his own creative ways in the circle of Lehmden, Avramidis, Hrdlicka or Hundertwasser. His whole nature with its inner passionate power, that once led him to black smithery and iron, was materialized in big format images. As of 1958, the artist worked with glass in a versatile manner. He created glass walls for St. Florian in Vienna, the Hall of Farewell in Klagenfurt, the University of Vienna as well as a wheel of class in Coburg. In 1956, he executed frescoes at the train station of Klagenfurt, won an award and provoked a scandal. Hoke was appointed professor at the Technical University of Graz in 1974, where he began to create a department for creative design. Until 1995, he was the head of this institute. Hoke had ateliers and workshops in Saager Castle (Grafenstein, Carinthia), which he bought in 1961.