Franklin Art Glass Studios began in 1924 with three principals, Wilhelm Kielblock, Wilhelm Kielmeier, and Henry ‘Elmore’ Helf. As the great depression deepened and stained glass work became increasingly scarce, Kielmeier pulled out of the operation altogether leaving Wilhelm Kielblock, a noted stained glass designer and painter, and businessman Elmore Helf to devise a more successful operation.
Elmore Helf was the son of Henry Helf, who had worked for Ludwig and Theodore Von Gerichten’s celebrated Von Gerichton Art Glass Company in Columbus prior to it’s closing in 1931. Although never associated with Franklin Art Glass Studios, the elder Henry Helf passed along to his son Elmore his passion for work in stained glass.

The arrangement struck by Elmore and the German-trained artist Wilhelm Kielblock to keep the firm afloat during the Depression was for Kielblock to quietly operate autonomously under the banner of Ohio Trade Studios and for Helf to assume full control of Franklin Art Glass Studios, including the substantial indebtedness of the studio at the time. Helf sold the Munich-style commissions designed and painted by Kielblock’s Ohio Trade Studios, which operated out of the same premises and even maintained the same telephone number as Franklin Art Glass Studios. The arrangement worked well – in fact, it worked very well. Wilhelm Kielblock and Ohio Trade Studios produced traditional stained glass work, seen throughout the United States, from inside the Franklin Art Glass Studios building until his death in 1987.

As successful as the studio had become by 1945, when Elmore’s son, James Helf, assumed control, the entrepreneurial spirit and drive of the Helf family led him to even greater heights. One pivotal point in the history of the studio involves Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, a Columbus based hamburger business. Wendy’s was building their first hamburger stand just a few blocks from Franklin Art Glass Studios’ former location, and, one fateful day, their interior decorator dropped in on their stained glass neighbors. He wanted to use stained glass lamps in his restaurant, and with the help of Franklin Art Glass, they designed a series of hanging lamps, which would become beacons for the thousands of Wendy’s Restaurants that would soon dot the American landscape. Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, Franklin Art Glass maintained one entire department devoted exclusively to manufacturing approximately 45,000 lamps for Wendy’s. While not exactly works of art on par with the religious windows that continues to issue forth from the hand of Wilhelm Kielblock and other liturgical window designers at Franklin Art Glass, these high visibility lamps captured the attention and interest of the general population; increasing the market for secular stained glass and stained glass hobby supplies.

Franklin Art Glass took another risk that subsequently paid off – they moved the 3,000 square foot studio into an old 23,000 square foot building in a ‘marginal’ neighborhood of older homes and commercial buildings in need of restoration. Franklin Art Glass has since added another 12,000 square feet of warehouse space. The German Village section of Columbus was, then, in sore need of money and TLC. Now Franklin Art Glass is part of a neighborhood that again values the handcrafted decorative arts.
With the Wendy’s department going full bore and church commissions on a steady, even keel, Gary Helf was ready to actively enter the family business in 1971.
The hobby market began at a time when many, if not most, stained glass studios withheld their raw materials from the hobbyist, Gary put the Helf business acumen and his college degree to work to deliver as diverse a selection of tools and materials as he could find to the hobbyist. This continues today, with an ever-growing retail showroom and a celebrated custom studio. Franklin Art Glass is sure to have as colorful and prosperous a future as it’s past.