Here and Now: Location, Location, Location: Tea and Coffee Services by John Marshall

In mid-August, the Seattle Art Museum will premiere Here and Now, an exciting, frequently changing exhibition space for new acquisitions. Over time, the full breadth of the museum’s collecting will be featured in this dynamic space located at the entrance to our galleries on the third floor.

The first new acquisitions to welcome our visitors are gleaming silver tea and coffee services representing three decades of master silversmith John Marshall’s career. “My tea and coffee sets relate to the place they are going,” as Marshall explains. Destined for a 1950s Seattle residence, a home in the San Juan Islands (on loan), and for the museum’s galleries, this trio of tea and coffee services glory in their sculptural delight and technical virtuosity. Marshall’s services blend traditional vocabulary—such as towering, vertical coffeepots and shorter, more horizontal teapots—with his evolution of individual expression.

John Marshall joined the faculty of the School of Art of the University of Washington in 1970, served as chairman of the Metalworking Department, and retired in 2001. In 2006, Marshall was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society of American Silversmiths.

– Julie Emerson, The Ruth J. Nutt Curator of Decorative Arts

Tea and Coffee Service, 2009, John Marshall, American, b. 1936, sterling silver, rosewood, Argentium sterling silver, and acrylic, The Guendolen Carkeek Plestcheeff Endowment for the Decorative Arts, Photo: jerrydavisphoto.com