Richard Quintin Ritter

Richard Ritter was born in 1940 in Detroit, MI where he later studied at the (now named) College of Creative Studies. He was hired to work there as an advertising teacher and took advantage of a perk of employment - enrolling in classes. After only using the furnace 11 times, Ritter was convinced that glassblowing was the medium he had been searching for to begin his life’s work.

His work which consists mainly of glass sculpture has been exhibited nationally and internationally. A murrina is a slice of glass cane that is made to view in cross-section and has been a consistent part of Ritter’s artistic studio glass output since the 1960s. In 1971 Ritter was introduced to Richard Marquis, who had recently studied glass blowing in Murano, while enrolled in a summer session at Penland School of Crafts led by Mark Peiser. Marquis helped Ritter improve his technical skills and thereby create more complex images within his murrine. By 1972 Ritter moved from Detroit to Penland to teach and work as an artist in residence and stayed there until 1977. In 2000, he received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the College of Creative Studies School of Art and Design. He has also been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant and the North Carolina Artist Fellowship Grant. Ritter lives and works in Bakersville, North Carolina.

[Source: Museum Staff - Julia Quigley and Whitney Richardson]