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Mar­vin Lipof­sky is con­sid­ered a cen­tral fig­ure in the devel­op­ment of the Amer­i­can Stu­dio Glass Move­ment.  In the early 1960s he worked under Stu­dio Glass founder Har­vey Lit­tle­ton and five other stu­dents at the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin in Madi­son then brought these new ideas to Cal­i­for­nia, where he taught at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, and Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of Arts and Crafts (now Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts), estab­lish­ing that school’s glass program.

He earned his BFA from the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois then an MS and MFA in sculp­ture from the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin.  He has also taught sem­i­nars and work­shops at numer­ous arts and crafts schools, includ­ing Haystack Moun­tain School of Crafts in Maine, Beza­lel Acad­emy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, Israel, and the Pilchuck Glass School in Wash­ing­ton.  As a vis­it­ing artist, Lipof­sky has trav­eled to Spain, France, Bul­garia, Swe­den, Fin­land, Japan and the Nether­lands.  He was one of the first Amer­i­can glass artists to travel to Czecho­slo­va­kia, a coun­try whose stu­dio glass move­ment launched in the 1950s.

Lipof­sky has received many hon­ors for his work, includ­ing a Life­time Achieve­ment Award from the Art Alliance for Con­tem­po­rary Glass in Chicago and a Mas­ters of the Medium Award from the James Ren­wick Alliance, Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  He was also named an Hon­orary Life­time Mem­ber of the Glass Art Soci­ety, an orga­ni­za­tion he founded, a Cal­i­for­nia Liv­ing Trea­sure and a recip­i­ent of two National Endow­ment for the Arts grants.

His work is rep­re­sented in the col­lec­tions of the Corn­ing Museum of Glass, Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art in New York City,  Los Ange­les County Museum of Art, Oak­land Museum of Cal­i­for­nia, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Philadel­phia Museum of Art, Glas­museet Ebeltoft in Den­mark, Museum Bell­rive in Zurich, Switzer­land, Museum Boji­mans Van Beunin­gen in the Nether­lands, National Museum of Mod­ern Art in Kyoto, and Hokkaido Museum of Mod­ern Art in Sap­poro, Japan.

Lipof­sky works from his stu­dio in Berke­ley, Calif.

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