Richard Marquis

Richard "Dick" Marquis (born 1945) is an American studio glass artist. One of the first Americans ever to work in a Venetian glass factory, he became a master of Venetian cane and murrine techniques. He is considered a pioneer of American contemporary glass art, and is noted for his quirky, playful work that incorporates flawless technique and underlying seriousness about form and color.

Early life and education Richard Marquis was born on September 17, 1945, in Bumble Bee, Arizona, the second son of an itinerant grocery-store worker and a ceramics-hobbying mother. Marquis and his older brother were the first persons in his parents' families to finish high school, and he was the first to attend college. As a child he began a life-long absorption with collecting found and scavenged objects in categories (cigar bands, bottle caps), though the collections disappeared each time the family moved. He also engaged in building hobby models.

Because of disagreements with his father, Marquis left home at fifteen, though he remained in his Southern California high school, where he developed an interest in ceramics. In 1963 he moved to the San Francisco area and began architecture studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He became more and more interested in ceramics, studying with Peter Voulkos and Ron Nagle. His quirky style was influenced by the funky environment surrounding Voulkos and the other Berkeley ceramicists of the time. After Marvin Lipofsky began a glass program at Berkeley in 1964, Marquis was attracted to glass, and by 1967 he had established his own studio. Given the title of guest designer in the Venini factory, he worked his way through the glassblowing line, watching the masters, making drawings, and then doing it himself. As he mastered the murrine techniques, Marquis realized he could use them to make objects with colorful patterns, and even to embed lettered words in blown objects. Many of his early objects, inspired by his Berkeley free-speech-movement days, were shaped like oversized recreational drug capsules, and included American flags, hammer-and-sickle symbols, and four-letter f-bombs. His thesis was on the making of murrine and their use, and for his exhibition he made two canes that could be cut into murrine: one of the American flag, and the second a remarkable and complex word-cane of the entire Lord's Prayer.

Career and work

Following his M.A., Marquis maintained his headquarters in Berkeley. Over the ensuing years, he operated several studios, some in partnership with other artists, where he did production work (e.g. murrine marbles) both for income and to improve his skills, as well as original work. In the first few years, he traveled extensively, visiting Central America, Europe, the Far East, and Australia (twice). On many of these trips, he taught glassblowing techniques and established workshops. In 1977 he accepted a teaching position at UCLA, and from 1977 to 1982, he commuted weekly between teaching in LA and his studio in Berkeley. In 1982 he pulled up stakes in both California locations, and moved entirely to an island in Puget Sound, where he maintains his studio today. For a few years, he continued a production enterprise, which he terminated at about the time of his marriage in 1987. but with amazingly perfected technique and a great deal of attention to form and color, and frequently with reference to classical glass shapes. There are also a number of signature forms, most notably murrine teapots, but also including geometric shapes, zanfirico handles, eggs, and elephants. Found objects, from Marquis's innumerable collections, are often included in his pieces. They maintain a home and studios on an island in Puget Sound. Marquis is also an avid collector of vernacular and found objects, and his collections have been noted as an influence on the themes and imagery in his work. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY (formerly American Craft Museum) North Carolina Mint Museum of Art/Craft + Design, Charlotte, NC Ohio The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH Pennsylvania Carnegie Mellon Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA Rhode Island Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI Washington Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA Seattle First National Bank, Seattle, WA Seattle Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Seattle, WA Swedish Hospital and Medical Center, Seattle, WA Prescott Collection of Pilchuck Glass at U.S. Bank Center (Seattle), Seattle, WA Washington DC Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Wisconsin Johnson Wax Collection, Racine, WI Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI

Australia Australian Council for the Arts, Sydney, Australia Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Australia City Art Gallery, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia Tasmanian Art Museum, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Australia

Canada Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada

Denmark Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Ebeltoft, Denmark

England Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England

Finland Finnish National Glass Museum, Riihimaki, Finland

Germany Kunstmuseum, im Ehrenhof, Düsseldorf, Germany Museum fur Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, Germany

Holland National Glasmuseum, Leerdam, Holland

Japan New Glass Museum, Tsukuba, Japan Koganezaki Glass Museum, Shizuoka, Japan Sea of Japan Collection World Modern Glass Arts Museum, Hiroshima, Japan

New Zealand Dowse Art Museum, Wellington, New Zealand Museum of Art, Auckland, New Zealand National Art Museum, Auckland, New Zealand

Switzerland Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland