Harvey K. Littleton (American, 1922-2013)

Art

Born in Corning, N.Y., on June 14, 1922, Littleton grew up near Corning Glassworks, where his father, physicist Jesse T. Littleton, headed research and development in the 1930s.

During this period glass blowing was done almost exclusively in factories that produced uniform, commercial products. A few companies, including Tiffany and Corning, had in the past, created beautiful hand-made vessels in a factory setting, with a master glass blower and a designer. A few artists were casting glass in the 1940’s in America but none were blowing glass and making art as designer and creator in small studio settings.

From 1939-40, Littleton studied physics at the University of Michigan before his growing preference for art led him to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1941. His education was put on hold for three years when he was drafted into the U.S. army and he served in North Africa, France and Italy in Signal Intelligence. After receiving an honorary discharge from the army, he attended classes at the Brighton School of Design in England before eventually returning to the University of Michigan and receiving a bachelor’s of design in 1947.

After earning his master’s degree in ceramics from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, he arrived at the University of Wisconsin in 1951. But it wasn’t until the late 1950s that Littleton became interested in molten glass. Although largely a forgotten art form in the United States, the use of glass as a creative art medium was still pursued by artist-craftsmen overseas, so Littleton traveled to Europe in 1957 to learn more.

According to an article that appeared in the December 1966 issue of Wisconsin Alumnus, Littleton visited glass factories and got to know several free-form glass-blowing artists. The article notes how Jean Sala, a French craftsman, showed Littleton some techniques and gave him some tools.

“It was the impact of watching the fascinating technology of the small glass shops in Murano, Italy, that made me resolve to discover for myself if glass-blowing was within the scope of the artist,” Littleton is quoted as saying.

After organizing a glass workshop at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1962, Littleton then launched the first studio hot glass program at an American university with an independent study course at UW that he taught out of his garage at his farm in Verona, located just outside Madison. This initial workshop was funded with a grant from the University of Wisconsin research committee, and he later built a large glass blowing studio and workshop on his farm.

It was around 1964 that the glass lab moved to a campus Quonset hut on North Randall Street, and in 2005 the UW–Madison program moved to the Glass Lab at 630 W. Mifflin St.

Over the years, Littleton was a strong advocate for making glass a course of study in university art departments in the Midwest and northeastern United States.

This is another of Littleton’s glass creations. Under the watchful eye of Littleton, the program and its early students – including Tom McGlauchlin, Marvin Lipofsky, Sam Herman, Fritz Dreisbach, Joan Byrd, Handler, Henry Halem, Dale Chihuly and Michael Taylor – became leaders in the studio glass movement, helping to lead a renaissance in glass blowing in the United States and Europe.