Wilber Olme (1889-1972) American, (3) Mid Century Modern Art Glass Candleholders. Unique three-step geometric design. Marked with indistinct initials on the bottom edge. 

Size: 5 1/2 x 2 1/4 x 5 1/4 in. 

Wilber Lofland Olme was born in Cambridge, Ohio on November 10th, 1889 and died in nearby Chagrin Falls on July 1st, 1972. He almost never traveled beyond the state, but devoted his life to glasswork, after leaving school to become an employee of the Cambridge Glass Company when it opened in 1902, at just 12 years of age. He worked first in the cold shop and then the batch house before becoming a full blown member of the melt house, eventually marrying the daughter of the company president, an Englishman named Arthur J. Bennett who then made him vice president. Olme took over in 1939 when Bennett sold him the controlling interest in the company just before his death, and Olme continued to develop new designs and colors over the next fifteen years. His nascent interest in mathematics flourished after transitioning from the hot shop into administration, and he developed a fondness for architectural design as well as table and wall decorations. Some of his final pieces for the company displayed an affinity for Art Deco, but by the early 1950s the demand for fine handmade glassware began to decrease, and Olme closed the plant down in 1954 and sold off the assets to Sidney Albert of Akron. The company continued to struggle and closed its doors in 1958, but Olme bought back the resources and then resold them in 1960 to Imperial Glass Company of Bellaire, Ohio, which continued to use the molds for several decades. Olme died in relative obscurity, but his contribution to Appalachian art glass was remarkable given his inauspicious origins, with pieces of his design now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as well as at Yale University and the Museum of American Glass in West Virginia.