First studio glass workshops at TMA
1962
L. to r.: Rosemary Gulassa, Harvey Littleton, Harvey Leafgreen, the second Toledo Workshop, June 1962
In 1962, Harvey Littleton organized at the Toledo Museum of Art the events that gave birth to the American Studio Glass Movement: the Toledo Workshops. Littleton, a professor of ceramics at the University of Wisconsin who had taught at the Toledo Museum of Art School of Design, believed that it was possible to explore making hot-blown glass objects in small furnaces outside of the factory setting. Otto Wittmann, then the Museum’s Director, invited Littleton to use a garage on the grounds of the Museum to hold experimental glassblowing workshops. The technical expertise offered by Dominick Labino of Johns-Manville Fiber Glass, Inc. near Toledo and retired glassblower Harvey Leafgreen of Libbey Glass became crucial to the workshops’ success. The Toledo Workshops participants sparked an unprecedented interest in glass as an artistic medium.