Each holiday season, we select an image for our member holiday card that inspires and draws attention to the work of an architect, artist, or designer important to the Modern movement.

 

This year, we highlight the work of Jane Slater Marquis (1922-2021), an American artist who worked predominantly in stained glass, completing major commissions throughout the American West. She was one of only a few women to graduate with a degree in art from Black Mountain College, where she was a student and mentee of the influential artist Josef Albers. Jane’s career spanned nearly eight decades and included collaborations with a number of notable architects such as Charles Moore and his firm Moore Ruble Yudell, Stoller and Marquis, and Brenda Levin, FAIA, as well as commissions for private residences throughout the country.

 

Jane’s student work from her time at Black Mountain College during the 1940s is held in the collections of the Harvard Art Museum, the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, the Asheville Art Museum, and the Black Mountain College Museum +Art Center. Her work as a stained glass artist reminds us of quiet power of the allied arts in the creation of the spaces we love.

 

You can learn more about Jane and her work in "Jane Slater Marquis: Everything is Lovely, but Never Quite, Never Quite Like Black Mountain," written by Docomomo US President Katie Horak for this year’s issue of the Journal for Black Mountain College Studies.