In 1994 Fritsch established a jewellery workshop in Munich. In 2006 he received the Françoise van den Bosch Award, given every 2 years to 'an international jewellery and object maker who is recognised for his/ her oeuvre, influence and contribution to the field'. In 2009 Fritsch moved to New Zealand with his partner, New Zealand contemporary jeweller
Lisa Walker. Fritsch primarily focuses on making rings, although he occasionally makes other pieces of jewellery and objects. His work is characterised by rough finishes, visible fingerprints, the use of oxidised silver, and mixing high and low materials, such as precious stones, plastic pearls, and glass gemstones. He uses lost wax casting, moulding, and reshaping of found materials to make his jewellery. In a 2015 interview Fritsch stated: A key moment was while studying at the Munich academy around 1991/92 when instead of melting down the old jewellery I bought for casting, I started to fix the pieces instead. It was a revelation to be able to use those pre-existing often conventional pieces of jewellery. I had learnt to make conventional jewellery in Pforzheim and conventional jewellery is what was around in Sonthofen where I grew up. From that moment on I understood how to access all the conventional jewellery skills I had learnt and use them in my own way, I started to really own what I had been taught. I could suddenly set a stone, saw, file, hammer, cast, solder, the way I wanted and not just the way I had been taught . Fritsch is known for a playful and unconventional approach to creating displays of his work. Critic Mark Amery wrote of a 2012 exhibition: As the exhibition title Scenes from the Munich Diamond Disaster suggests, the pristine presentation of gems has been upturned, as if some artist jester has been at work after hours. There is a precarious profusion of divergent materials in explosive clusters, sprouting like fungi from brightly coloured lumps of plasticine. That might sound ugly, yet it is both beautiful and original in the way it builds new ideas out of both championing and questioning the old. Fritsch has taught at art schools around the world. He also works collaboratively with a range of artists, including
Feierabend (2009, Kate MacGarry, London) and
Gesamtkunsthandwerk (2011,
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery) with artist
Francis Upritchard and furniture designer
Martino Gamper, and several projects with photographer
Gavin Hipkins. Fritsch's work is held in many international museum collections, including the
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam,
Neue Pinakothek Munich, the
Metropolitan Museum in New York, the
Museum of Arts and Design New York and the
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. ==Exhibitions==