Harvey Littleton - Education

Education

When he was eighteen, Harvey Littleton enrolled at the University of Michigan to study physics. His choice of major was influenced by his father, who wanted one of his children to follow him in his profession (Littleton’s two elder brothers chose medicine and business as careers; his sister was an industrial psychologist). According to Littleton, "I always thought I would be a physicist like my father".

Littleton's interest in art began in high school, where he took life drawing and sculpture classes. He also took a sculpture class during his freshman year at the University of Michigan. His growing preference for art eventually proved stronger than his respect for his father's wishes. After three semesters of physics he transferred to Cranbrook Academy of Art for its 1941 spring semester. There he studied under sculptor Marshall Fredericks and worked part-time as a studio assistant to Carl Milles. Dr. Littleton was not pleased by his son's decision. Littleton enlisted his elder sister Martha's aid in pleading his case to their father, and a compromise was reached. Littleton would return to the University of Michigan that fall, but not to physics. The study of fine art was not part of the compromise; instead, Littleton agreed to major in industrial design.

During summer break in 1942 Littleton worked as a mold maker at Corning Glass Works in the Vycor multiform project laboratory. There he cast his first work in glass, an academic torso, in white Vycor. That fall Littleton was forced to delay his education for three years when he was drafted into the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He served in North Africa and Italy and, near the end of the war, received a commendation for his work in encoding. In early 1946 he was in England, waiting his turn to be shipped home. To fill the time he attended classes at the Brighton School of Art, where he modeled and fired a small clay torso that he carried home in his barracks bag. Once back in Corning, New York, Littleton cast the torso, again in Vycor, as a small edition.

He finished his degree in industrial design in 1947. With his father's encouragement Littleton submitted a proposal to Corning to create a workshop within the factory to research the aesthetic properties of industrial glass. The proposal was rejected and instead Littleton and two friends, Bill Lewis and Aare Lahti, opened a design studio in Ann Arbor.