About the Artist; C. Glenn Richardson
Born in 1930 and raised on Chicago’s North Side, Glenn spent over 50 years in the commercial and non-commercial art world as a painter, sculptor, muralist and product designer. Growing up in a family of artists, he learned to draw at an early age and used hand me down materials and brown paper obtained from the butcher to practice his art. He won his first art contest in the 5th grade, and another in High School at Lane Tech, designing an emblem that their library could stamp into their books.
Continuing his interest in art, Glenn went to Wright College where he made All-Conference playing football, and transferred to University of Alabama where a knee injury ended his football career. He then joined the Marine Corp during the Korean War and while stationed in Jacksonville, North Carolina in the Fleet Marine Force, designed his company’s emblem, which became their official insignia. Later while stationed in San Diego he had the chance to study art and continued working on developing his skills.
After his military service he returned to Chicago in 1953. His older brother, also a talented artist, began to encourage him to sculpt statues and lamps. Glenn started to do freelance work with his brother, and attend the Illinois Institute of Technology. He began working with Lamp designer and sculptor Les Fordyce, whom he credits as “the best part of my education”. Mr Fordyce died a couple years later, which led to Glenn beginning a 13 year career as designer and modeler for Plasto Lamp Manufacturing Company.
In 1965 he began working again as a freelance designer and sculptor for several companies, including Continental Studios, who he designed for independently for nearly 20 years. He also worked to redesign the interiors of several churches in the Chicago area, including painting murals in many of those churches. In the late 60s he and a partner created a lamp company called Lite-America Corporation. It did fairly well until a trucking strike made it impossible to deliver their merchandise, which led to the company going out of business.
Less than 2 weeks later, in April of 1971, he began work at Haeger Potteries in what was their 100th year in business. He worked at first with long time designer Eric Olsen who was planning to retire within the year, and eventually became the chief designer for Haeger Potteries and Royal Haeger Lamp Company. He would hold that position for 22 years. After his time at Haeger ended, he was approached by Harris Marcus Group, and was told they had admired and been influenced by his designs for years. They quickly made him their chief designer for several product lines. He held that position for nearly ten years until health issues interfered with that relationship. He continued to work for them as a freelance designer as long as he could until his retirement in 2006.
Through all these years he always found time to pursue his painting, drawing and ink sketches. His fine art, although very well known and loved throughout his extended family, has rarely ever been seen by the public. The collection exhibited here represents a small portion of his lifetime of personal work, and demonstrates the diversity of his interests, styles, and abilities.
C. Glenn Richardson passed away on September 17, 2018 surrounded by his loving family.