Richard Marquis has had an extraordinary influence on the development of contemporary studio glass in America and around the world. Studying at the University of California at Berkeley during the 1960s, he explored ceramics and was introduced to glassblowing. Unsatisfied by the limited techniques practiced in American studio glass at that time, Marquis went to the island of Murano, near Venice, to observe and work with the masters of a glassblowing tradition acknowledged as the best in the world. 

Freely sharing his knowledge of the techniques he learned in Venice, Marquis has demonstrated and taught throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The effect of Venetian glassblowing techniques on American studio glass enabled glass artists to expand their technical vocabularies and, combined with new and experimental approaches, led to the redefinition of glass as an artistic medium.

In the world of contemporary ceramics, Richard Shaw is the master of trompe-l’oeil sculpture. He has developed an astonishing array of techniques, including perfectly cast porcelain objects and overglaze transfer decals. By combining the commonplace with the whimsical, the humorous with the mundane, Shaw captures the poetic and the surreal with the sensibility of a comedian.

Shaw is one of the most respected and collected artists in contemporary ceramics. He came out of the San Francisco Bay Area art scene in the late 1960's and he continues to add to his skills and appropriate from mass culture. He has developed a vocabulary of found objects that form intimate still life sculptures, complex figures, and personally referential assemblages. He brings life to the detritus of the studio, as a cartoonist animates the page.