Founded in 1973 by International Glassmaker Michael Harris, Isle of Wight Studio Glass is readily recognised for the highly imaginative and original approach used in developing this magical material. Oustanding skill in design, in exploring new techniques and manufacturing has enabled I.O.W.S.G to become the leader in this field.
Glass has been produced for over 6000 years and today this ancient craft enjoys as much care and originality as ever and uses skills and materials that differ little from those of 13th Century Venice or 3rd Century Rome. The craftsmen are trained to `feel' and `control' the material with which they work, and produce shapes and forms of the highest quality. The studio was converted from ancient farm buildings, just below the famed and beautiful St.Lawrence Undercliff. The magnificent coastline and landscape surrounding the studiohas inspired the development of the highly successful Seascape, Nightscape and Undercliff collections. Many of the richly coloured designs have won major awards and some are produced using 22ct Gold and Sterling silver leaf.
Today the company continues to prosper under the direction of the Harris family. In addition to the standard collections, Limited Editions and `one-off' pieces are produced, many using techniques such as `Graal' & multi-layered `casing' which demand tremendous artistic and technical skill. Isle of Wight Studio Glass is exported worldwide and can be found in many private and public collections.

The Harris Dynasty

Michael Harris (1933- 1994) studied` glass design during the 1950's at Stourbridge College of Art and at the Royal College of Art (RCA).In 1962 he was appointed Tutor in Industrial Glass at the RCA, where he taught for the next six years, setting up hot-glass facilities there in 1967. Leaving Sam Herman to take his place, he moved to Malta, where with Eric Dobson he established the Mdina Glassworks in 1969. Along with Vicente and Ettore Boffo, glassblowers from the Whitefriars factory, he trained local apprentices, making striking and richly coloured glass.

The designs and colours used were very distinctive, including axe and fish vases, winged-stem chalices and tall narrow bottles in blue/green, blue/gold and amethyst/gold. Michael Harris left Mdina Glass in 1972 to set-up the Isle of Wight Glass works near Ventnor. Some of the shapes used in the 1970's at Isle of Wight were similar to those developed at Mdina but are distinguished by the fact that they are more finely blown. Early colourways include Tortoiseshell, Seawood and Aurene, with Azurene from 1979 using gold and silver leaf. When Michael Harris died in1994 his widow Elizabeth and their two sons Timothy and Jonathan carried on the tradition of glass design at the factory. Today Timothy and Elizabeth Harris continue to design and produce high quality art glass whilst Jonathan has set up his own innovative studio in Ironbridge, Shropshire.