Designer for Steuben Glass
Donald Pence Pollard was born in Bronxville, New York, on September 3, 1924. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and worked in the trainee program at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art. Also, for a while, he worked in architectural theatre design. Pollard joined Steuben in 1950. He passed away on May 5, 1994.
Steuben was founded in 1903 by Fredrick C. Carder and his partner Thomas G. Hawkes. Carder had been designing and producing glass in England for the firm of Stevens and Williams. Hawkes owned a large glass cutting factory in Corning, New York. Initially, the designers at Steuben followed styles that were popular at retailers such as Tiffany & Company, but the company took an artistic turn in the 1930s. In 1933, Steuben created a prismatic crystal formula that could capture, reflect and refract light unlike anything else in the world. During the Art Deco movement, Steuben became best known for its unique work in modernist clear glass.
Sources: “Steuben Glass, An American Tradition in Crystal” by Mary Jean Madigan; Ancestry.com