Treadway Gallery Decorative Arts Auction, March 19, 2000 page 155

AMERICAN STUDIO GLASS BEFORE 1980

The movement known as American Studio Glass began in March 1962 when Harvey K. Littleton and Dominick Labino organized a workshop in glass-blowing at the Toledo Museum of Art. Littleton was a ceramist in the Art Department at the University of Wisconsin (Madison), and Labino was director of research for Johns-Manville Fiber Glass, Inc. The challenge was to set up a furnace and to arrive at a formula for the batch of glass that would melt at a temperature low enough to allow the individual artist to work it directly. Labino was in charge of the technical side of things, such as construction of the furnace and composition of the glass batch, while Littleton was more interested in the esthetic possibilities of glass as an artistic medium. This workshop was sufficiently successful to warrant a follow-up three months later and a new art form, distinctly American, was under way.

Labino soon retired to his home in Grand Rapids, Ohio, and spent the rest of his life exploring the chemistry of color in glass and experimenting with various techniques for working it. He produced a small number of difficult pieces with rare beauty.

Littleton returned to Madison and set up a workshop at the University, where beginning in the 1963-64 academic year he offered a graduate program in glass-blowing. This program proved to be seminal for American Studio Glass. Over the next ten years it produced teachers and practitioners with a wide range of interests, a high level of skill, and unlimited creativity.

Among Littleton's students have been Robert Fritz, Marvin Lipovsky, Fritz Dreisbach, Samuel Herman, Robert Barber, and Dale Chihuly. Fritz soon set up a glass program at California State University (San José), becoming the mentor of James Wayne, James Lundberg, Douglas Boyd, and David Hopper; while Lipovsky set up a glass program at the University of California (Berkeley), becoming the mentor of John Lewis, Kim Newcomb, Richard Marquis, Michael Nourot, and Michael Cohn. Another center for American Studio Glass has been the Penland School in North Carolina, which includes Mark Peiser and John Nygren among its associates.

Today works by these artists are in the major museums of the world.
Orient & Flume

The company of Orient & Flume was founded in 1972 at Chico, CA, by Douglas Boyd and David Ballentine Hopper. Both had studied with Robert Fritz at San José. Their first furnace was located in Boyd's backyard, which lay between Orient Street and Flume Streethence the company title. Their first pieces were signed with a double B, indicating Boyd and Ballentine. The company regularly drew in other artists with various skills in working glass, including Kathy Orme (a designer who still does sand-carved glass in Chico), Lubomir Richter (a Czech-trained glass engraver who works for Steuben), Dan Shura (an ivory scrimshaw artist now living in Canada), Daniel Boone (a stained-glass artist who now has his own studio in Chico), and Bruce Sillars (a designer and glassblower employed by the company). Orient & Flume specialized in recreating the outstanding achievements of famous American companies, such as Tiffany "cypriote" glass and Steuben aurenes. While the body of their work is largely a riff on American art nouveau, by 1978 they were experimenting with more contemporary styles. Literature: 3(pp.1-20); 26(p.33)
Lundberg Studios

James Lundberg studied with Robert Fritz, and in 1970 set up his own furnace in San José. He was eventually joined by his brother Steve, Mark Cantor, and David Salazar, forming Lundberg Studios. In the mid-70s the company moved to Davenport, CA. Lundberg was a pioneer in the chemistry of coloring glass and in new techniques of working it, especially millefiori insets and paperweight techniques. His stylistic interests began with art nouveau, which he took in distinctive directions. Literature: 8(p.20); 9(p.44); 23(p.106)

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