Harvey Littleton: 24 interesting facts

Harvey Littleton (June 14, 1922 – December 13, 2013) was an American glass performer and educator, one of the founders of the studio glass movement; he is often referred to as the “Father of the Studio Glass Movement”,. Born in Corning, New York, he grew happening in the shadow of Corning Glass Works, where his dad headed Research and Development during the 1930s. Expected by his father to enter the arena of physics, Littleton then again chose a career in art, gaining reply first as a ceramist and far along as a glassblower and sculptor in glass. In the latter skill he was totally influential, organizing the first glassblowing seminar aimed at the studio performer in 1962, on the grounds of the Toledo Museum of Art. Imbued afterward the prevailing view at the become old that glassblowing could isolated be done on the factory floor, separated from the designer at his desk, Littleton aimed to put it within the achieve of the individual studio artist.

In his role as an educator, Littleton was an “… outspoken and eloquent open-minded of academe education in the arts.”^:6 He initiated the first hot glass program at an American university (the University of Wisconsin–Madison) and promoted the idea of glass as a course of psychiatry in academe art departments in the United States. Littleton’s students went on to disseminate the assay of glass art and establish supplementary university-level hot glass programs throughout the U.S.

Littleton retired from teaching in 1977 to focus upon his own art.^:110–111 Exploring the inherent qualities of the medium, he worked in series with simple forms to put the accent on the complex interplay of transparent glass later multiple overlays of thin color.^:2

While at Wisconsin, as an outgrowth of a workshop he taught in cold-working techniques for glass, Littleton began experimenting in the same way as printmaking from glass panes. As an independent artist, his studio included atmosphere for printmaking, and he continued to examine and fabricate the techniques of vitreography.^{:99,130–134}

Littleton worked as an independent glassblower and sculptor until chronic back up problems forced him to abandon warm glass in 1990, and he continued his creative combination in vitreography skillfully beyond that.