Marjorie Schick

Marjorie Schick
Born	Marjorie Ann Krask (1941-08-29)August 29, 1941 Taylorville, Illinois
Died	December 17, 2017(2017-12-17) (aged 76) Kansas City, Kansas
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	academic, jewelry artist
Years active	1967–2017
Known for	bold and whimsical large-scale jewelry of wood and papier-mâché

Marjorie Schick (August 29, 1941 – December 17, 2017) was an innovative American jewelry artist and academic who taught art for 50 years. Approaching sculptural creations, her avant-garde pieces have been widely collected. Her works form part of the permanent collections of many of the world's leading art museums, including the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia; the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Japan; the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania; and the Victoria and Albert Museum of London.

Growing up in the Heartland of the United States, Schick was raised by her single mother, who as an art instructor nurtured her creative talent. After attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she completed a master's degree in fine art at Indiana University Bloomington. She then moved to Kansas, shortly thereafter beginning a lifetime association with Pittsburg State University, where she taught as an art professor.

In addition to her teaching, Schick developed a worldwide reputation as a jewelry artist, creating works which were more like body sculptures than traditional jewelry. Her conception of pieces allowed her work to be displayed on the body while simultaneously interacting with it, rather than simply being worn as an adornment. As one of the innovators who moved jewelry craftsmanship away from metals in the 1960s, she experimented with a wide variety of materials, including papier-mâché, wooden dowels, rubber, string, and canvas. Her large-scale works were typically brightly colored and represented a modernist abstract aesthetic.