$500 Knife River signed 1946 watercolor 17" x 22"
$1,000 Cedars on a Misty Day signed watercolor 29.5" x 21"
$1,250 View from my Studio signed 1970 watercolor 18.5" x 26"
$800 Horn Holland signed 1970 watercolor 18.5" x 23"
$1,700 Industrial Scene signed watercolor 18" x 24"
$1,250 Still Life (Tiger Lillies) signed oil on canvas 24" x 20"
$1,900 Still Life (Chair & Books) signed 1974 watercolor 21" x 29"
$800 Still Life signed watercolor 17" x 24"
$950 Moving Indian Girl signed (MIA label on back) 1956 oil on canvas 52" x 30"
$950 Man Feeding His Chickens signed, 1934 oil on canvas 16" x 20"
$1,950 Autumn Trees signed 1978 watercolor 29" x 21"
$2,750 Arrangement in Red and Blue signed oil on canvas 30" x 24"
$1,200 Sunny Hillside signed 1961 watercolor 14" x 21"
$4,800 Honey Tree 1968 oil on canvas 84" x 38"
$450 Small Casualty signed 1970 watercolor 11" x 15.5"
$1,250 Snowy Farm signed, 1947 oil on canvas 20" x 24"
$1,200 Figure in Space signed 1949 pastel 17.5" x 23"
$950 Beware of Him Who Carries a Book signed, 1956 oil on canvas 16" x 19"
$150 St. George & The Dragon signed, 1969 lithograph 2/30 17" x 21.5"
SOLD Cows Eating Hay signed 1942 watercolor 10" x 14"
SOLD Abstract signed, 1968 watercolor 14.25" x 13.5"
SOLD Boat House signed 1948 oil on canvas 14" x 16"
SOLD Portrait of my Father signed 1935 oil on canvas 32" x 30"
SOLD
SOLD
SOLD
SOLD Split Rock Lighthouse signed 1941 etching 7" x 5"
SOLD Conversation signed 1971 ink 9" x 11"
SOLD Winter Birches signed 1974 watercolor 30" x 22"
SOLD Farm on #1 (heading toward Duluth) signed drawing 7.75" x 10.25"
SOLD Plate pottery (made in Red Wing) 14" diameter
SOLD The Letter signed ink 14" x 11"
SOLD Fish Houses signed, 1962 watercolor 17" x 22.5"
SOLD
Birney Quick (1912-1981)
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 1937 he returned to Duluth, shared a studio with fellow artist Kunte Heldner, opened a gallery, 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. 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. 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.
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.
Birney Quick passed away in Minneapolis on December 2, 1981, of complications following open heart surgery.