Creative Glass Serbia

Creative Glass Serbia

Advertisement for the Corning Glass Works published in the American Weekly in 1935 in (“Giant Eye, One of Many Miracles in Glass Wrought by One of America’s Greatest Glass Works”, New York); source: the digital collection of the Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass.

American Studio Glass Movement

Written by S. Jovičić and I. Mijalković

Over the millennia-long history of glassmaking, Americans rank among those most responsible for creating the conditions for independent artistic work with glass. First made possible in the early 1960s in Toledo, this kind of practice most often involved glassblowing, since until then it could be carried out only in factories. Many other techniques of making and working glass (flame-working, engraving, etching, etc.) did not require furnaces capable of melting a glass batch (sand, soda ash, and limestone) into a honey-like substance, as glassblowers often describe it. Once in that state, the material could not only be blown, but also cast, pulled and shaped in various ways. Although the first examples of studio glass were blown, the glass art scene has always included studios in which glass is created using a wide range of other techniques as well.

Drawbacks and Prejudices

The greatest obstacle to creating the conditions for studio glassblowing was not only the absence of suitable furnaces for melting glass, but also a mindset shaped by an industrial culture of glassmaking that had no real alternative until the 1960s. Anyone interested in artistic expression through blown glass was routinely steered towards studies in industrial design and, ultimately, a job as a designer in a glass factory. Those who accepted this path rarely gained the opportunity to work directly with the material because factory production was strictly divided – the designer supplied the drawings, while skilled workers carried out the making, to the best of their knowledge and ability. From 1903 onwards, glass was increasingly blown by machines, which gradually reduced the number of glassblowers, while designers were expected to become ever more familiar with the machinery. A second, and greater, frustration came with the realisation that factories would produce what sells, not what is well designed. For many who longed to work with glass, it slowly became clear that industrial design offered little freedom and few chances to truly engage with the material. There was also a deeply rooted belief that glass could only be made collectively, as in factories – some workers melted the batch, others gathered the molten glass ono the blowpipe, a third group blew it, shaped the bubble, added colour, handles, and so on. It was very different from painting on a canvas, for example, or playing an instrument, and more like a team sport than an artistic activity. Seen in this way, glassblowing remained out of reach for artists.

Advertisement for the Corning Glass Works published in the American Weekly in 1935 in (“Giant Eye, One of Many Miracles in Glass Wrought by One of America’s Greatest Glass Works”, New York); source: the digital collection of the Rakow Research Library, Corning Museum of Glass.

Harvey Littleton’s Pioneering Work

The first person confident enough to challenge this state of affairs was Harvey Littleton, born in 1922 in Corning, by then already America’s “Crystal City” and the home of Corning Inc. glass factory that remains one of the world’s leaders today. His father, Jesse, was the first physicist, and indeed the first scientist of any kind, employed by that company for research, and the inventor of Pyrex heat-resistant glass. Harvey initially set out to study physics at the University of Michigan, but soon found himself spending more time in classes in sculpture, ceramics and metalwork. As a compromise with his father, he eventually graduated in industrial design. During his undergraduate years, from 1941 to 1947, he also worked at the Corning glassworks. In the summers he assisted in the mould shop of a laboratory specialising in Vycor glass, where he produced his first piece in glass. In 1942 he was drafted into the army and served in South Africa, France and Italy. While waiting to be sent home from Europe, he attended classes at the Brighton School of Art.

Sculpture Female Torso by Harvey Littleton, 1942, Vycor glass, 28.6 cm in height and 12.8 cm in width; source: the online Postwar and Contemporary Glass Collection of the Corning Museum of Glass.

Holding a degree in industrial design, he proposed to the Corning glassworks that they establish a workshop dedicated to researching the aesthetic potential of industrial glass. When the proposal was rejected, he returned to Michigan and, together with colleagues, set up a design studio in Ann Arbor.

He soon began helping to equip a local ceramics workshop (The Goat’s Nest Ceramic Studio) and to teach pottery classes there. When he took up a post as a ceramics instructor at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1949, he continued his education and completed a master’s degree in ceramics at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1951. He then became a professor of ceramics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It was during this period that he met Otto Wittmann, then Assistant Director of the Toledo Museum of Art, Dominick Labino, a glass engineer in Toledo, and others with whom he would, a decade later, transform contemporary art. He travelled frequently, acting as a link between all these places and people.

Wall sculpture Ionic Structure of Glass by Dominick Labino, 1979, glass; source: the online Postwar and Contemporary Glass Collection of the Corning Museum of Glass.

Equally familiar with glass and clay, he began to ask himself: “If people can make pottery in their garages and back gardens, why shouldn’t they be able to make glass in the same way?” Determined to enable the use of glass as an artistic material, independent of factories and industry, he pursued this goal with persistence. Between 1958 and 1961 he submitted funding applications to every existing arts foundation to support research into glassblowing and the construction of a suitable furnace. None were approved because the idea was widely regarded as unrealistic. His first successes therefore came on his own, in the studio of his rural home in Wisconsin. By slightly modifying a ceramic kiln, he managed to melt glass and blow a series of small vases and paperweights. When he showed them to Otto Wittmann, Director of the Toledo Museum of Art, Wittmann was delighted. He offered to invest in further research, on the condition that it take place in Toledo, which Littleton accepted.

Spring in Toledo, 1962

Wittmann’s trusted associate, who would oversee the entire experiment and ensure its success, was Norm Schulman, a pottery instructor at the Museum and a knowledgeable specialist in technology. His second appointee was Dominick Labino, an engineer who already held more than one hundred patents in the glass industry and was also an amateur artist. As the members of the museum’s board were sceptical and feared that such research might cause a major fire, the museum garage was designated as the workspace.

Dichroic bowl by Dominick Labino, 1969, glass; source: the online Postwar and Contemporary Glass Collection of the Corning Museum of Glass

Littleton approached the whole endeavour academically. He drafted a letter to the deans of art schools, asking them to allow their faculty, many of whom were his friends, to participate in the experimental glassblowing workshop to be held at the Toledo Museum of Art in March 1962. The workshop accepted only ten participants, and the fee was $50. Interest was exactly at that level. Harvey’s studio furnace was transported to Toledo, but the first days of work were largely unsuccessful – the glass would not melt properly. Thanks to Dominick Labino’s expertise, the furnace was disassembled and rebuilt as a tank rather than a pot, and some borosilicate marbles from the factory, which melted well under these conditions, were brought in. Participants were divided into groups and began working in shifts but no one really knew what they were doing. They had glassblowing pipes but did not know how to blow glass – whatever they managed to inflate immediately fell off the pipe. At the museum, they could only watch a film of work in a factory, which offered little practical help.

 

Norm Schulman, Dominick Labino and Harvey Littleton in Toledo, 1962; photograph by Gloria Schulman; source: digital collection of the Corning Museum of Glass

Schulman came up with the idea of organising a public programme to attract retired glassblowers from factories (there were no more of them in the factories themselves, because the glass was machine-blown). Littleton gave a lecture, and at the end, a retiree named Harvey Leafgreen approached him. It turned out that Leafgreen was like a dean among the older generation of glassblowers. He had worked for Libby Glass, and he came to the US from Sweden, where he had already worked in a glass factory at the age of six. In June 1962, Leafgreen demonstrated glassblowing in the museum workshop that had been established and that marked the true beginning of the studio glass movement. They now had both the material and the know-how to work it.

Sharing Knowledge and Building a Network

By the following autumn, Littleton had established a glass programme at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (today the UW–Madison Glass Lab), bringing together twelve students, including Marvin Lipovsky, Fritz Dreisbach, and Dale Chihuly. Another key moment was the founding assembly of the World Crafts Council, held in 1964 in New York, where officials from around the world watched Littleton demonstrate glassblowing using a small furnace. Sybren Valkema, a Dutch artist, educator, and then representative of his Ministry of Culture, returned to the Netherlands and built a glass furnace at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam – the first in European art schools. This marked the beginning of the European studio glass movement, known as Vrij Glas (Free Glass).

Littleton travelled extensively across the United States to spread knowledge and encourage the establishment of educational programmes in glass. His students did the same, and today there are dozens of higher education programmes in glass art throughout the country. Museums also provided crucial support, particularly the Corning Museum of Glass, which in 1979 organised the travelling exhibition New Glass, introducing the world to works in this new artistic medium. It was only then, thanks not only to the exhibition but also to better knowledge of the material, that conditions began to emerge in which artists could also sell their work. With the opening of public and commercial glass studios (in New York, Seattle, Pittsburgh, at museums, etc.), trained artists could continue their practice, attend further courses, exchange experiences, and sell their pieces. Unlike the European glassmaking tradition, where knowledge is often closely guarded and passed down selectively, frequently only within families, the American approach is remarkably open – most practitioners are eager to demonstrate their skills, engage in conversation, and collaborate with others.

Expanding Influence

Vase by Sybren Valkema, created in 1964 at the Royal Dutch Glassworks, glass, 19.1 cm in height and 28.2 cm in diameter; source: the online Postwar and Contemporary Glass Collection of the Corning Museum of Glass

Littleton eventually left teaching to devote himself fully to his own creative work, which progressed through several phases. In doing so, he embodied the very lesson he had imparted to his students:

Glassblowing is not a new craft but an acquaintance with a new medium… The technique is cheap… Don’t fall into the trap of making only bottles and vases – seek a way to express yourself and speak through your work.

In 1993, the Glass Art Society (founded in the United States in 1971) awarded Littleton and Labino their lifetime achievement awards. These were the first such awards, later bestowed on artists including Sybren Valkema (Netherlands), Itoko Iwata (Japan), Erwin Eisch (Germany), Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský (Czech Republic), Lino Tagliapietra (Italy)… All of them made significant contributions to establishing the conditions for studio glassblowing: from Valkema, who in 1967 organised the European Free Glass exhibition (including works by Americans) and came to Madison to teach Littleton’s students European techniques and coloured glass rods; through the provocative Eisch, who became a friend of Littleton’s from 1962 and exhibited alongside him; Brychtová and Libenský, whose work kept Czech glass art renowned even under communism; to Lino Tagliapietra, the Murano master who taught Americans Venetian glassblowing techniques for many years – and many others.

Littleton the Teacher by Erwin Eisch, 1976, glass; source: the online Postwar and Contemporary Glass Collection of the Corning Museum of Glass.

Maturation of the Studio Glass Movement

Today, sixty years after retiree Harvey Leafgreen demonstrated glassblowing to a handful of enthusiasts in Toledo, there are numerous university programmes and glass art studios around the world. Specialist suppliers provide schools and artists with ready-to-use furnaces, tools, and glass in a variety of qualities and colours that simply need to be melted. Online, one can view the work of most artists, access archived magazines, watch high-quality video tutorials, and readily find mentors and collaborators. With the 2019 launch of the reality TV series Blown Away, glassblowing has even become part of global popular culture. In the United States, glass is blown in almost every setting – extracurricular school programmes, public and commercial studios, art schools, professional and amateur workshops, and museum-affiliated studios. Practitioners create everything from subcultural jewellery, water pipes, and decorative objects, to design pieces, architectural elements, and entirely abstract expressions often combining glass with other materials and disciplines.

Marvin Lipovski, rad “B” iz serije Fragmenti nastale u Srpskoj fabrici stakla u Paraćinu 1980.
B by Marvin Lipofsky, from the Fragments series created at the Serbian Glass Factory in Paraćin, 1980; photograph courtesy of the Lipofsky Studio.

In its mature phase, the American Studio Glass Movement engages with issues of social justice – giving voice to Black artists, women, and LGBTQ+ identities; addresses sustainability – shifting to clean energy sources and electric glass furnaces); and introduces the creation and use of digital machines and tools, including software, 3D-printed moulds and glass, CNC machines, and the like. Following the commemoration of numerous anniversaries and the consolidation of knowledge about the initiatives and achievements of glass artists across the United States, American museums now maintain specialised archives and libraries. Online resources such as Voices in Studio Glass History (Bard Graduate Center) allow anyone to trace areas of interest and envision the future of studio glassmaking.

 

Reference

This text was produced within the framework of the project Preparation of a Preliminary Technical Assessment for the Protection, Preservation, and Revitalization of the Paraćin Glassmaking Industry, implemented by the Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Foundation for the Advancement of Economics, the Republički zavod za zaštitu spomenika kulture, and the Corning Museum of Glass. The views, findings, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Embassy of the United States of America.

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