"American Studio Glass: A Survey of the Movement"
May 15 - August 24, 2003

William S. Fairfield Art Museum
242 Michigan St., Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
Phone: (920)746-0001 Fax: (920)746-0000

Harvey Littleton
Red 279? Rotation 1982
Barium/potash glass w/Kulger color outside to inside overlays
1982 19 x 4.5 x 4; 3 x 6.25 x 3.5

Harvey Littleton (born 1922; resides Spruce Pine, NC)

Often referred to as the “father of the American Studio Glass Movement,” Harvey Littleton established the first glass program at an American university -- the University of Wisconsin, in Madison -- in 1962. Originally a ceramist, Littleton shifted to the study and production of glass after he and Dominick Labino combined forces in Toledo, Ohio, to develop new techniques and practices that would transform glass making from an industrial medium to a medium for art. Littleton’s knowledge of glass stemmed from his upbringing in Corning, NY where his father was a physicist with a Ph.D. at Corning Glass Works. Littleton earned a Bachelor of Design from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor in 1947, and an M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. Research grants from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the University of Wisconsin, and the National Endowment for the Arts helped him develop his work as an artist/educator. A self-proclaimed “evangelist,” Littleton has shared his knowledge and passion for art, education, and glass with people worldwide. Harvey Littleton is an Honorary Life Member of the American Ceramics Society and the Glass Art Society. Like his now famous students, he and his work have been the subject of countless exhibitions and publications, and private and public collections world-wide. In 1977, Littleton retired from teaching but continued working as an artist in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, where he focuses on little-known properties of glass such as compression, durability, and elasticity, to print prints made from glass plates known as vitreographs. In 2000, the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin honored Littleton by conferring to him an Honorary Doctorate Degree. Of Littleton’s work, it can generally be said that it is a study in relationships of color, the strength of glass, and mathematical proportions.

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