Studio Glass Founder Marvin Lipofsky Dies

See New York Times report at the link.

Change America Forever

continued from Mike Manginella of Escondido (San Diego), CA

Carder’s very first design in glass was a very highly cut decanter for Stevens and Williams. It was made in their best clear leaded glass. If one were to look at this, you couldn’t help but think, my (insert your particular deity/non deity or other term here) Carder never liked the standard cutting of glass, yet this is just cut to death with cutting that doesn’t have any movement to it. I image Carder being a type of person who never liked to do things the standard way, but if it delivered him to where or what he really wanted, then it made perfect sense.

At that point in England, and with Stevens and Williams, cut glass was the majority of their sales. So creating a massively cut glass decanter, in a very novel shape (based on my study of decanters), would be the ideal design to get Carder more visibility and on a track to advancement. Carder, in my mind, didn’t care for cut glass at least partly because the cutting altered the outline of the glass, so the smooth curve became a faceted surface; and partly because the clarity of the glass.

The customer base was obsessed with the clearest, whitest, perfect glass, the ideal being that the glass itself, so clear was like not being there…so the faceted cutting, with its spectral effects and patterned miters, on clear glass, gave the glass its shape, eye appeal, and color. Carder’s knowledge of all areas of glass, his position at Stevens and Williams, blended with T.G. Hawkes’ need to control more of his blank supply, created an event that changed American Glass forever.