I G S
photo: M. Lee Fatherree / Littleton family photo: Courtesy o f Littleton Archives
U nhindered by tradition, A m erican glass artists freely shared their grow ing expertise.
Museum of Art, thanks to the
support of director Otto Witt-
mann. Only io people showed
up on March 23 for the first
10-day workshop. But they rep-
resented the realms of glass
and clay, art and science, aca-
demia and industry, modern
technology and old-world tech-
nique, Corning, New York,
and Toledo, Ohio - disparate
elements that were manifest in
Littleton too.
The son of the Corning
Glass Works physicist who
developed Pyrex, Littleton
became intrigued with glass as a
child while visiting and working
in the factory. He also came to
admire the beauty of the Steuben
Marvin Lipofsky
IG S F lip p y - 9 8
#5,
1997-8
13 x 25 x 19 in.
glass produced under the direc-
tion of his elderly neighbor,
Frederick Carder. But those
pricey pieces were designed by
white-collar men and executed
by blue-collar workers.
Longing to do it all himself,
Littleton spent years exploring
glass studios in Europe (most
of which were attached to fac-
tories) and experimenting with
small furnaces. Discouraged by
those who said making hot glass
outside a factory was impossible,
Left: Littleton and his
parents, c. 1937. His
father, Dr. Jesse Talbot
Littleton Jr., was a
research physicist at
Corning Glass Works.
Littleton took up clay, which
had already pushed past factory-
made pottery into artworks
fired in backyard kilns.
By 1951, armed with a degree
in industrial design from the Uni-
versity of Michigan, an MFA
from Cranbrook Academy of
Art, and experience teaching
ceramics at the Toledo Museum
of Art, Littleton joined the art
faculty of the University of Wis-
consin in Madison. He and his
wife, Bess, and their children
moved to an 80-acre farm in
nearby Verona.
There Littleton continued
to experiment with hot glass,
building a squat brick furnace
and equipping it with a large
ceramic crucible he’d made.
The experimental glass forms
he created began to spark the
interest and support of the arts
community - including that of
Wittman and Dominick Labino,
friends Littleton had made
while teaching in Toledo.
Vice president and director
of research for Johns-Manville
Fiber Glass in Toledo, Labino
also had an experimental glass
furnace in his backyard. He
would play an essential role in
that first workshop.
So did Littleton’s graduate
assistant. Clayton Bailey, now
72 and professor emeritus at
California State University,
Hayward, recalls dismantling
feb/mari2 american craft 047
