Our memorable brand name has become synonymous with fused glass art and coloured glass splashbacks, and The House of Ugly Fish is now firmly placed at the forefront in the world of glassmaking. But where did fused glass art come from? In this blog we’d like to take you through a brief history of fused glass art.

Fused glass art is thought to date back as far as the 5th or 4th millennia BC and is widely thought to have been created by the Phoenicians. Sailors, lighting fires on the shores of Lebanon, actually created it by accident! Early fused glass art was produced from a mixture of silica sand, lime and soda, with malachite added for colour.

New glass-making techniques halted from here until the beginning of the Greco-Roman era, and in this period, new
Egyptian glass centres sprung up. Molded glass bowls started to appear coinciding with the Christian era and around this time, Millefiori, a decorative technique in which different coloured glass rods are fused together, became popular, leading to more fused glass art.

This carried on until the turn of the 1st Century BC, when there was a major economic advance in glass-blowing techniques. Because of this, production of glass vessels increased dramatically. These techniques are now widely used and incorporated into modern day, fused glass art. And that’s where we come in!
After an opportunity arose in 2005 to study fused glass art, our talented artist Lisa, honed her glass making skills and soon made her presence known. Being half Venetian, her love of Murano glass has influenced her greatly, as can be seen in the striking colours used in her own fused glass art.

Many in the art world have regarded glass art as a craft. Together with The House of Ugly Fish, Lisa has transformed this perception and established a place for fused glass art alongside art on canvas and art in frames. It is now gaining popularity as original art. Her huge success is in being able to bring her fine art background to the fused glass art media. Take a look around the site for some examples of Lisa’s exquisite work!