42 Facts About Harvey Littleton

Harvey Littleton was an American glass artist and educator, one of the founders of the studio glass movement; he is often referred to as the "Father of the Studio Glass Movement".

Harvey Littleton's students went on to disseminate the study of glass art and establish other university-level hot glass programs throughout the US.

Harvey Littleton retired from teaching in 1977 to focus on his own art.

Harvey Littleton worked as an independent glassblower and sculptor until chronic back problems forced him to abandon hot glass in 1990, and he continued his creative interest in vitreography well beyond that.

Harvey Kline Littleton was born in Corning, New York, the fourth offspring of Dr Jesse T Littleton Jr.

Harvey Littleton's father was a physicist who had been recruited from the faculty at the University of Michigan to join the first research team at Corning Glass Works.

Director of Research at the time of Harvey's birth, Dr Littleton is remembered today as the developer of Pyrex glassware and for his work on tempered glass.

Dr Harvey Littleton was fascinated by glass and believed that the material had almost unlimited uses.

When he was eighteen, Harvey Littleton enrolled at the University of Michigan to study physics.

Harvey Littleton enlisted Martha's aid in arriving at a compromise: Harvey Littleton would return to the University of Michigan that fall, to major in industrial design.

Harvey Littleton enrolled in a ceramics class, with Mary Chase Stratton.

Harvey Littleton was assigned to the Signal Corps, and served in North Africa, France, and Italy.

Harvey Littleton modeled and fired another small clay torso that he carried home in his barracks bag.

Once back in Corning, New York, Harvey Littleton cast the torso, again in Vycor, as a small edition.

Harvey Littleton returned to the University of Michigan in January, 1946, and finished his degree in industrial design in 1947.

In 1949, Harvey Littleton enrolled under the GI Bill as a graduate student in ceramics at Cranbrook Academy of Art, studying under Finnish potter Maija Grotell.

Harvey Littleton received the MFA degree in ceramics in 1951, with a minor in metals.

Harvey Littleton's work was included in group shows in the United States, including "Designer Craftsmen USA," sponsored by the American Craft Council in 1953 and the Ceramic National exhibition at the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts in 1954.

Harvey Littleton's pottery gained international exposure in 1956 at the First International Exposition of Ceramics in Cannes, France.

Harvey Littleton first stopped in Paris to visit Jean Sala, who had been recommended to him as an artist who worked alone in glass.

Harvey Littleton was surprised to find seven small glass factories there.

Harvey Littleton was fascinated by the little demonstration furnaces that some of the factories placed outside their walls.

Harvey Littleton's meeting with Sala and his Murano experiences stimulated his interest in making glass art in a private studio.

Harvey Littleton built his first glass furnace in the summer of 1959.

At this conference, Harvey Littleton suggested that glass should be a medium for the individual artist.

When no grants for a hot glass studio had materialized by the fall of 1961, Otto Wittmann, director of the Toledo Museum of Art, suggested that Harvey Littleton consider giving a glassblowing seminar at the museum, and offered the use of a storage shed on the museum grounds.

Harvey Littleton found nothing that he could bring back to the US to help him educate art students at the University of Wisconsin.

The friendship begun when Harvey Littleton visited Eisch in Frauenau in 1962 lasted for the rest of Harvey Littleton's life, and had profound influence on the work of each.

In 1966, a five-year retrospective, Harvey Littleton: Glass, showed at the Milwaukee Art Center.

Harvey Littleton presented papers on his experiments in glassblowing at crafts conferences in the United States and elsewhere.

Harvey Littleton served as the chairman of the University of Wisconsin art department from 1964 to 1967 and from 1969 to 1971.

Harvey Littleton retired from teaching in 1976, in order to devote his full attention to making work in glass.

In 1977 Harvey Littleton was named professor emeritus of art at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Shortly after Eisch's departure from a several-week period as artist-in-residence at Wisconsin in fall 1967, Harvey Littleton realized that he had unconsciously adopted his friend's strongly personal figural style in his own work, and began a radical change.

Harvey Littleton explored cutting and slumping industrial glass, including plate and optic glass, beginning in 1970.

Harvey Littleton incorporated optical lens blanks manufactured by Corning with his own hot-worked glass.

In 1989 chronic back problems forced Harvey Littleton to retire from working in hot glass.

In 1974, Harvey Littleton began experimenting with vitreography.

Harvey Littleton received a research grant from the university in 1975 to continue this work, and his first prints from this process were shown in a show at the Madison Art Center.

Harvey Littleton regularly invited artists in various media to explore the possibilities.

When back problems forced him to stop working in hot glass in 1990, Harvey Littleton continued his printmaking.

Harvey Littleton died on December 13,2013, aged 91 at his home in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.