Maurice Marinot: The Glass 1911-1934

Over twenty years of glass production by the French painter and glassmaker. Maurice Marinot (1882-1960) was a pioneer in the development of glass as a studio art form. Born in Troyes, France, Marinot began his career as a painter, studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and associated with the Fauvist movement. In 1911, a visit to the glassworks of the Viard brothers at Bar-sur-Seine was the catalyst for an all-encompassing passion for glass that would endure for twenty-six years. Drawing initially on his skill as a painter, Marinot decorated glass with striking, brightly coloured enamels. Around 1920, he began to create his own highly experimental glass forms that he considered as sculpture. A combination of failing health and the closure of the Viard’s works in 1937 caused Marinot to stop making glass and he returned to painting and drawing.