Known as the founding father of the studio glass movement, Harvey Littleton was born in 1922 in Corning, New York. Urged by his father, Littleton studied physics at the University of Michigan before being drafted into the Army Signal Corps. Returning to college in 1945, Littleton compromised with his father and majored in industrial design, graduating in 1947. For a time, he worked as an industrial designer, but decided in the end to pursue art instead. He attended Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Littleton’s fascination with glass stemmed from his youth and - after receiving his MFA in 1951 - he focused primarily on his own research in glass studio practices. Previously, glass artists would create designs to be handed over to a team of glassmakers, who would then reproduce them. Littleton spent much of the late 1950s researching, experimenting, and creating a one-person glass production line, redefining what it was to be a glass artist. He traveled extensively around the county demonstrating his new technique, and in 1962, he founded the first studio glass program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Among his students were such artists as ACC Fellow Marvin Lipofsky and ACC Gold Medalist Dale Chihuly. Littleton was a member of the faculty at UW-Madison until 1977, when he retired as professor emeritus and moved to North Carolina. He received the American Craft Council Gold Medal award in 1983 and died in 2013.