Quick, Birney, 1912-

Birney McNabb Quick was born on November 9, 1912, in Proctor, Minnesota, the son of Paul Morrow and Agnes Caroline Eckert Quick. The family later moved to Duluth where he graduated from Denfeld High School in 1931.

Quick spent the early 1930s in the East, attending the Vesper George School of Art in Boston (1931-1934) and studying at several Massachusetts and New York art colonies, particularly the Barn Studio in Andover, Massachusetts, and in Woodstock, New York. He received his first honorable mention in a major art show at the Springfield (Massachusetts) Art League's annual show in January 1935. In 1936 and 1937 he was awarded the prestigious Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation fellowship (one of only eight given annually) and spent the summers studying at the Tiffany estate on Long Island, New York. In August he held his first one-man show, at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, and in October had a painting in the Art Institute of Chicago's annual exhibition of American works. He returned to Duluth in 1937, opened a gallery (November 1937), and was employed as sculpture and art instructor at the College of St. Scholastica (1938-1940).

Quick joined the Army Air Corps in June, 1943. Assigned as an air corps artist, he spent part of his tour of duty painting a series of murals at the Keesler Base, Biloxi, Mississippi. He was honorably discharged from the Army in February, 1946.

In the fall of 1946 he joined the faculty of the Minneapolis School of Art, now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), as a painting and drawing instructor. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the college in 1951, was promoted to associate professor in 1964 and to professor in 1973, and also taught in the school's evening program. He served as overseas director of its Junior Year Abroad program (1970-1971), supervising students at the Ateliers '63, a studio school in Haarlem, The Netherlands, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, and the Wimbledon School of Art in London. In November, 1973, he received an honorary Master of Fine Arts degree from MCAD and at his December, 1977, retirement was named the school's first professor emeritus.

In June, 1947, Quick and Byron Bradley of the Kilbride-Bradley Gallery, Minneapolis, began the Grand Marais (Minnesota) Outdoor School of Painting as part of the Minneapolis School of Art's summer program. During 1949-1951 the classes were held in Red Wing and Minneapolis, but the program was moved back to Grand Marais in 1952 and was rechristened the Town Hall Art Colony. In 1956 the art school terminated its sponsorship of the colony, and Quick and Bradley became its sole owners. They renamed it the Grand Marais Art Colony. From its earliest years the colony offered Saturday classes for children. In the 1950s and early 1960s it also ran an eight-week series of Friday night lectures on various aspects of art and the study of art, as well as a four-week Town Hall Music Series that brought such diverse talents as concert violinist Rafael Druian and the Doc Evans Dixieland Band to the Grand Marais community. After Quick's death in 1981, his widow Marion Quick, and Bradley continued to operate the colony.

During his career Quick produced over 10,000 artworks. His work was shown in numerous one-man and group exhibitions in such galleries as Duluth's Art Institute and the Tweed Gallery; Minneapolis's Harriet Hanley Gallery, Walker Art Center, Kilbride-Bradley Gallery, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Martin Gallery, and MCAD; and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Quick was also a member of the Five Minnesota Artists traveling demonstration group (1950), had works in American Federation of Art and United States Information Service traveling exhibits, and produced watercolor illustrations for Ford Times magazine (1950s-1970). His highly acclaimed murals can be seen in buildings in Coleraine, Grand Marais, Duluth, and St. Paul, all in Minnesota. In 1975 he was named an Outstanding Educator of America.

His book Adrift in the Aesthetic Latitudes, was published by Voyageur Press in 1980. Composed of thirty-two essays and thirty-five original pen and ink drawings, it reflects his thoughts and experiences as an artist and teacher.

Quick married Marion Lucille Riedel on June 25, 1938. They had three children: Mary, Dan, and Leslie. He died in Minneapolis on December 2, 1981, of complications following open heart surgery.

Biographical data was taken from the collection.

From the guide to the Birney Quick papers., undated and 1930-1984., (Minnesota Historical Society)