Glass artist Wilfried Grootens was born in 1954 in Uedem, Germany. As a teenager, from 1969 to 1973, he apprenticed to Hein Derix as a glass and porcelain painter. He then traveled extensively around the world, including to Asia, South and Central America, and the Middle East, pursuing freelance art work as well as music. He would go on to settle in Munich, where he recorded with the German bands Embryo and Dissidenten, known as proponents of the “world beat movement.”

Grootens returned to glass artistry in the 1980s, receiving his Master Craftsman’s Diploma in 1988. In 1989, he moved to the German town of Kleve to open his own studio. He is known for his use of the optical float technique, in which he stacks layers of painted glass to create enchanting cube forms. Grootens has exhibited widely throughout the United States and Europe.