In 1947, Otto Glaser was finally able to return to Vienna to be with his parents and completed his studies, earning his doctorate in atomic physics. While he maintained a lifelong connection to Austria and the legacy of a cultured, innovative continental Europe, his professional career and personal home were in Ireland. Starting in the 1950s, he played a pivotal role in the economic development of the country as a technical innovator and entrepreneur. Glaser became a

trailblazer in telecommunications. In 1951, he established his own manufacturing research company, Technico. A few years later, he founded Telectron, which, by the early 1980s, had become one of the country’s most prominent companies, employing some 800 people. He later sold Telectron to the American telecommunications giant AT&T. Alongside his profession, Glaser found time for a variety of other activities. He was, among other things, president of the Irish-Austrian Society and a keen sailor. In 1974 he won a Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) regatta in a boat he had designed himself. He was also a keen collector of Austrian and maritime art – a passion that took him regularly to Hotel Cipriani in Venice and the Hotel Imperial in Vienna, as well as to Vienna’s art dealing circles. It was there that he acquired the paintings that would remind him of his homeland, even when he was in Ireland.

Rudolf von Alt’s unique view of the magnificent Upper Belvedere; delicate watercolours by the same artist and his father Jakob show- ing the ships in Venetian harbours, always bearing the Austrian flag; naval battle scenes involving the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Navy, which Otto Glaser commented on and studied extensively … all of these are a testament to his deep attachment to Austria’s storied past. Gustav Klimt’s Tafelfreude (Delight at Table), a won- derfully airy study for the theatre in Karlsbad, and his portrait of ladies probably reminded the collector of the cultured, old Vienna elegance he had experienced as a child. Also taking pride of place in Glaser’s house on Dublin Bay: Alfons Walde’s Auracher Kirchlein (Little Church in Aurach), a much-loved souvenir from the collec- tor’s favourite holiday destination, Tyrol.