Review / Informed Opinions

 

June Issue 1999

 

Harvey K. Littleton Reflections 1946 - 1994
Mint Museum of Craft + Design - Charlotte, Through July 4, 1999
A Review

 

by Michael W. Haga

 

Works in glass are a prominent part of today's world of studio craft, and this situation exists in part because of Harvey K. Littleton's interests in the material and his efforts to develop and expand upon existing traditions. The Mint Museum of Craft + Design is featuring a survey of Littleton's work as part of its inaugural programming. In the exhibition catalogue, Mark Richard Leach, Director of the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, speaks of the institution's mission as "documenting and interpreting the postwar studio craft movement and its relationship to traditional decorative arts and industrial design." Mary F. Douglas, Curator of the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, has developed a auspicious manifestation of this ambitious mission in Harvey K. Littleton Reflections 1946 - 1994.

The exhibition presents substantial background materials which allow one to trace Littleton's development as an artist/craftsman. Littleton began his career as a ceramicist, and the exhibition's examples of his works in clay are functional, elegant pieces. The forms of these vases, bowls, and bottles are consistently clean, and Littleton has used line with restraint to decorate their surfaces. With its irregular bands of color and repeated hatch marks, Stoneware Bowl recalls the form and decoration of a proto-geometric Greek vessel, and its full body and relatively small foot form a graceful contrast with one another.

Rather than relying on a display of Littleton's works in clay as the sole means of illustrating this phase of his career, Douglas includes Littleton's correspondence and photographs of the period in the exhibition in order to allow the viewer to develop a more full understanding of what interested him at that time. Letters to Littleton from Juliana Busbee, owner of Jugtown Pottery in Seagrove, North Carolina, and from Littleton to his wife bring to light his concerns with the artistic and business aspects of craft production. Photographs of Littleton's displays and demonstrations in craft fairs are interesting documentation of what remains a regular part of life for many craft artists.

Documentary materials form a significant portion of the exhibition, and those elements that pertain to Littleton's work with glass are prominent. Posters for craft shows, commercial advertisements, a notice for a symposium, and other materials chronicle Littleton's eminence in the newly flourishing area of glassblowing.

Photographs of Littleton at work in his studio are particularly interesting, but they are eclipsed by Hot Glass, a 16mm film that the Milwaukee Art Center produced in 1967 which plays on a video monitor in the gallery. The film shows Littleton at work in his studio, providing the viewer with a somewhat fuller understanding of what a craftsman must do in order to work with glass. Perhaps more interesting to those viewing the exhibition, the film features Littleton discussing his ideas about how the creative process influences the artist/craftsman as he or she develops the forms with which he or she works.

This excellent supporting documentation clarifies Littleton's artistic development over time without overwhelming one with too much information, but the stars of the exhibition are Littleton's works in glass. Objects from the earliest stages of Littleton's career as a glassblower permit the viewer to follow the progression of his artistic concepts as he worked with the material in ways that were unexpected thirty or more years ago. Early on, Little broke with tradition by slumping glass and violating the integrity of his creations' forms.

The biomorphic form of Exploded Vase, a work from 1964, derives from Littleton's exploitation of the plastic qualities of molten glass. Swirls of glass wrap around the vase to create a linear pattern that plays against the bulbous masses of the body of the object. In Imploded Form, Littleton withdraws air from the mass of molten glass in order to create a slumped form that is freed from the realm of function.

As Littleton continued to explore the possibilities of his chosen medium, he began to produce works using industrial materials. In works such as Optic Wave, a sculpture of bent optic glass, Littleton manipulates his materials in surprising ways, exploiting their practical qualities for aesthetic purposes. Combining a series of table tops with brass fittings and a wooden base, Littleton creates Horizontal/Vertical, a striking work from 1974. The slumped, stacked pieces of glass emphasize the process of creating and assembling the work, thus implying the passage of time. From a formal standpoint, the patterns of light and shadow that Horizontal/Vertical creates are beautifully random foils for the repeated linear forms of the edges of the glass.

When viewing the works the Mint Museum of Craft + Design has assembled in Harvey K. Littleton Reflections 1946 - 1994, one admires Littleton's innovative use of non-traditional materials to expand the boundaries of a traditional craft; his skill in handling his materials; and his manipulation of color, shape, and line to create finished works of art. The exhibition installation displays the diverse works to great advantage, and the catalogue records the disparate elements of the exhibition beautifully. For those persons not familiar with the medium or Littleton's work, the inclusion of a basic vocabulary list and more information about the technical aspects of glass blowing and working with industrial materials would strengthen the exhibition, but this is a minor objection to an otherwise admirable initial offering.

Harvey K. Littleton Reflections 1946 - 1994 will be on view at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design until July 4, 1999. It will travel to The Arkansas Art Center Decorative Arts Museum in September.

 

Michael W. Haga is the assistant to the Dean of the School of the Arts and an adjunct member of the Art History faculty at the College of Charleston, Charleston, SC.

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