 He was a central figure in the dissemination of the American Studio Glass Movement, introducing it to California through his tenure as an instructor at the University of California, Berkeley and the California College of Arts and Crafts.Lipofsky was raised in Barrington, Illinois, where his family owned a department store.In 1962, he earned a BFA in Industrial Design from the University of Illinois, and he went on to earn both an MS and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1964.