Page 28 - April 2024

e toss around the term “influencer” today to refer to someone companies that produced glassware that was in the style of Thorpe but
we follow on social media who catches our attention, however did not carry Thorpe’s signature.
Wfleeting, and introduces us to something or someone new. Collectible items include cocktail pitcher sets, teacups and saucers,
Their role is primarily to market products to someone else by using their punchbowl sets, candy dishes, glasses (champagne coupe/cordial/
influence with targeted buying groups. That, however, is a 21st century tumbler/martini/rocks/TomCollins/goblet/flute/highball), decanters, ice
interpretation of the word. In the more traditional sense, influencers are buckets, candle holders, sugar and cream sets, shrimp cocktail stems,
visionaries. In the glass world, they are the men and women whose art, handkerchief bowls, plates, salt-and-pepper shakers, cocktail shakers,
vision, and body of work influenced future generations of artisans, pitchers, tea sets, platters, carafes, relish serving dishes, and vases.
and changed the way we forever look at glass. Here is a brief look at six
influencers worth admiring: Harvey K. Littleton (1922-2013):
“Father of the Studio Glass Movement”
Dorothy Thorpe (1901-1989): Glassware Designer

Harvey Littleton is considered the father
Dorothy Thorpe, born in Salt Lake City
in 1901, is a noted mid-century glass of the studio glass movement in the United
States. Born in 1922 in Corning, New York,
designer well-known for her floral patterns, Littleton fell in love with glass at the age of
sand etching techniques, and collaborations six while seeing it produced at Corning
with such premier glass companies as Heisey Glassworks, where his father headed
and Tiffin. Her timeless and modern Research and Development during the
designs, particularly her iconic wide-band 1930s. At home, the properties of glass and
sterling overlay glass pieces, made her work its manufacture were frequent topics at the
instantly desirable for the cocktail crowd family dinner table. Dr. Littleton was
and today, highly recognizable and fascinated by glass and believed that the
collectible for their “of-the-era” style.
Like many of her mid-century contemporaries, Thorpe was a designer, material had almost unlimited uses. Today,
not a manufacturer, of glassware. She purchased simple blank glassware, Dr. Littleton, Harvey’s father, is remembered as the developer of Pyrex
glassware and for his work on tempered glass.
mostly crystal, from U.S. and European manufacturers and decorated After serving with the U.S. Signal Corps during World War II,
them with her personal designs using sandblasting, etching, and stenciling Littleton went on to study industrial design at the University of
techniques. The same applied to her design work on ceramics such as
dinnerware. Thorpe bought large lots of blank dinnerware and decorated Michigan. After receiving his M.A. degree from the Cranbrook Academy
them. She also decorated tableware for other companies and released of Art in 1951, he accepted a teaching position in the Department of Art
and Art Education at the University of Wisconsin, remaining on the
several of her own lines. faculty until 1977.
Of all the glassware she decorated, Thorpe is perhaps most famous for
Littleton’s initial specialty was ceramics, but by the late 1950s, he was
her 1950s “Roly-Poly” tumbler collection, so successful that other labels exploring the possibility of creating studio glass. Through research
replicated it. Each glass featured a sterling-silver overlay band called sponsored by the Toledo Museum of Art in 1962, he developed
“Allegro” around the top. A runner-up bestseller was the glassware line equipment and a formula for melting glass at lower temperatures,
“Atomic Splash,” which featured “explosions” of silver overlay around the enabling him to blow glass in a studio rather than in the usual factory
tumbler. She eventually dabbled in Lucite and ceramics, but it is her setting. This breakthrough led Littleton to play a major role in introducing
elegantly designed glassware that continues to enthrall vintage barware glass blowing in college and university craft programs. His own program
and glassware collectors. Dorothy Thorpe is also the designer behind at the University of Wisconsin fostered the talents of a generation of glass
Heisey’s most famous and highly prized stemware line called artists, including Dale Chihuly and Fritz Dreisbach.
“Hydrangea,” which features a base created in the form of a hydrangea Littleton’s first pieces in blown glass were, like his earlier works in
flower. These were offered by Heisey in a few shades. pottery, functional forms: vases, bowls, and paperweights. His break-
Thorpe’s naturalist inspirations in her design work extended to other
floral motifs, including eucalyptus, irises, roses, and narcissus flowers. In through to non-functional form came in 1963 when, with no purpose in
mind, he remelted and finished a glass piece that he had earlier smashed
1945, she wrote to a collector that many of her floral motifs were inspired in a fit of pique. The object lay in his studio for several weeks before he
by the flora and fauna that surrounded her on trips she took to Hawaii. decided to grind the bottom. As Littleton recounts in his book
Although Thorpe’s work is highly collectible today as the market rides
the mid-century retro wave, buyers and collectors should be aware: while Glassblowing: A Search for Form, he brought the object into the house
where “it aroused such antipathy in my wife that I looked at it much
some of Thorpe’s work can be identified by her signature trademark logo more closely, finally deciding to send it to an exhibition. Its refusal there
of a small, upper-case “D” next to a larger upper case “T” sandblasted made me even more obstinate, and I took it to New York ... I later
into her glassware pieces, that is not always the case. Some pieces, not showed it to the curators of design at the Museum of Modern Art. They,
sandblasted with her logo, were paper labeled (many lost to time) while perhaps relating it to some other neo-Dada work in the museum,
other pieces sold directly from the manufacturer did not include the purchased it for the Design Collection.”
designer’s mark, which often confuses her work with other U.S. glassware

26 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles