Robert A. Trias (March 18, 1923 – July 11, 1989) was an American karate pioneer, founding the first karate school in the mainland United States and becoming one of the first known American black belts. He also developed Shuri-ryū karate, an eclectic style with roots in Chinese kung-fu, and indirectly some Okinawan karate.
Dextra Quotskuyva Nampeyo (September 6, 1928 – February 2019) was a Native American potter and artist. She was in the fifth generation of a distinguished ancestral line of Hopi potters.
In 1994 Dextra Quotskuyva was proclaimed an "Arizona Living Treasure," and in 1998 she received the first Arizona State Museum Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2001, the Wheelwright Museum organized a 30-year retrospective exhibition of Quotskuyva's pottery, and in 2004, she received the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts Lifetime Achievement award.
Maurice Marinot (born 20 March 1882 in Troyes, France, died 1960, Troyes) was a French artist. He was a painter considered a member of Les Fauves, and then a major artist in glass.
Marinot's father was a bonnet maker. Maurice did poorly in school, but convinced his parents to send him to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1901 to train as a painter under French painter, Fernand Cormon. He left art school after his work wasn't accepted by the standards of the day. In 1905 he returned to Troyes, where he stayed for the rest of his life.
In 1911 he visited his first glass shop, owned by his friends, the Viard brothers. He fell in love with the contrasts between colors, hot and cold, the play of light and fire. He began designing bowls, vases and bottles which his friends made, then he painted enamels on the surface.
In 1912 he had his first exhibition and by 1913 critics were praising his work, saying “It has been a long time since an innovation of such great importance has come to enrich the art of glass” (Leon Rosenthal, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1913). From that year he stopped exhibiting his paintings.
The Viard brothers give Marinot his own bench and a set of tools, so he learned quickly how to blow glass. In 1923 he stopped using enamels, and explored the use of bubbles, metal leaf, and colored glass. His production process was “Long and fraught with danger” and one piece could take as long as a year to reach his standards.
The Viard Glassworks closed in 1937. Marinot was ill, and never touched glass again, though he did continue to paint. In the 1944 Allied bombing of Troyes there was direct hit on his studio, destroying over 2,500 paintings, thousands of drawings, and much of his glass. His sister's extensive collection was not damaged.
Major donation of Maurice Marinot (glass and paintings) was made by Pierre and Denise Levy to the Museum of Modern Art in Troyes in 1976. Florence, Marinot's daughter also gave major Maurice Marinot pieces of art to the city of Rennes Museum of Art.
A 20 piece glass collection by Marinot including vases, goblets and stoppered bottles dating to 1926-27 was gifted to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1970.
Pierre-Frédéric Dorian (24 January 1814 in Montbéliard, Doubs – 14 April 1873 in Paris) was a French master blacksmith and radical Republican leader. He served as minister of public works from 4 September 1870 – 19 February 1871. He was the grandfather of Pauline Ménard-Dorian.
Marie-Alain Couturier, O.P., (15 November 1897 – 9 February 1954) was a French Dominican friar and Catholic priest, who gained fame as a designer of stained glass windows. He was noted for his modern inspiration in the field of Sacred art.
Friedrich Wilhelm Carl Bechstein (1 June 1826 – 6 March 1900) was the maker of C. Bechstein pianos and the founder of C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik.
Arnaldo Pomodoro (born 23 June 1926) is an Italian sculptor. He was born in Morciano, Romagna, and lives and works in Milan. His brother, Giò Pomodoro (1930–2002) was also a sculptor.
Pomodoro designed a controversial fiberglass crucifix for the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The piece is topped with a fourteen-foot diameter crown of thorns which hovers over the figure of Christ.
Some of Pomodoro's Sphere Within Sphere (Sfera con Sfera) can be seen in the Vatican Museums, Trinity College, Dublin, the United Nations Headquarters and Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, American Republic Insurance Company in Des Moines, Iowa, the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, Ohio, the University of California, Berkeley, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, Stanford University, and the Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Charles Blavette (24 June 1902 – 21 November 1967) was a French film actor. He appeared in 50 films between 1933 and 1966.
