Richard Martin Ash III

1943 - 2019

Richard Martin Ash, III

WIchita Falls

On Monday, February 18, 2019, Richard Martin Ash III, MSU Professor of Art, Emeritus, and printmaker par excellence, passed peacefully from this world with his fellow artist and wife of thirty years, Liz, and their beloved Westie, Finn, by his side.

The elder son of Margaret Callahan Ash and Richard Martin Ash, Richard was born on April 27, 1943, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where his father was stationed as a member of the United States Air Force during WWII. Though he left New Mexico as a young child and was reared in Wichita, Kansas, Richard later would develop a deep interest in Native American artifacts and culture of the Southwest-most especially the Anasazi-and appreciation for the land itself. Richard's formal education in the arts began at the Fort Wayne Art Institute, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and continued at Wichita State University, where he earned a BFA and MFA.

Richard arrived on the Midwestern campus in the fall of 1968 to teach printmaking and drawing. It was a time in which the names of old-guard faculty members mostly had disappeared from university course schedules, and in their place were a growing number of young faculty with names such as Hoggard, Meux, Crossnoe, and Rogers, all hired during the mid to late 1960s. It was in these ranks that Richard would remain for the next 39 years. During that time, he would design the art studios, offices, and art gallery for a new fine arts building known today as Fain Fine Arts; advance to the rank of Professor of Art; chair the Department of Art for two decades; direct the University Gallery and the Visiting Artist Program from 1978-2002; and display his prints in more than 450 regional and national exhibitions. During Midwestern's May 1979 commencement ceremony, Richard received the highest honor accorded an MSU faculty member, the Hardin Professor award. After his retirement, he returned to Midwestern from 2009-2011 as Interim Director of the Wichita Falls Museum of Art at MSU. In this capacity, Richard led the first redesign and renovation of the museum since it opening in 1967.

While teaching at Midwestern, Richard met and later married a young painting instructor and eventual Professor of Art from Pennsylvania named Elizabeth Yarosz. Together they led a life filled with art. One of Richard's favorite times of the year was over the summer when Liz and he would load the car and embark upon a tour of museums and art galleries or take a road trip to Native American sites in the Southwest or explore state parks in Texas and New Mexico and beyond. Along the way, Richard would search for additions to his collections of vintage brass water sprinklers and lithographic tins as well as horns and antlers, the latter the subject of some of his best-known series of prints. Color, texture, oddity or ingenuity of form, crispness of design-these captured his eye and found their way into his art.

Richard's prints can be found in such diverse public collections as those of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts; General Motors, Detroit, Michigan; Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana; Blanton Museum of Art, the University of Texas at Austin; Texas Christian University, Fort Worth; Texas Instruments, Dallas; Prudential Insurance Company, Chicago, Illinois; and Bank of America, Dallas. He was featured in the 1990 book Forty Texas Printmakers, edited by James L. Fisher of The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and invited to display his work in an accompanying exhibition, Printmaking in Texas, the 1980s for which Richard's work received a Purchase Award and became a part of the Modern's Permanent Collection. His prints have been published by Winn Press, an exclusive fine arts press in Seattle, Washington, and by Peregrine Press, Dallas, Texas. In 2014, the Fort Worth Community Arts Center honored Richard as "Distinguished Texas Artist," and he was featured in a major exhibition at the Center during honor/award ceremonies in September-October of that year. Among the numerous national competitive exhibitions to which he received an invitation, Richard was perhaps most proud of his inclusion in the Smithsonian Institute's Traveling Invitational Exhibition on New American Monographs.

Known to be immensely practical, productive, and inventive, Richard also was loyal, tenacious, opinionated, and he suffered no fools. He reveled in building and creating things, and he was, as Liz would say, a dirt man, one who delighted in sinking his hands into dirt and planting things and watching them grow. Year round, he kept flowers in bloom in the yard, tucked away in one favorite niche or another. Those who spent time with him knew that he loved cowhides and leather, Brooks Brothers wool tweed jackets, starched light-blue Levi jeans, clean white leather sneakers, and hair grown long and tucked behind his ears or-during his earlier days-drawn into a neat ponytail at the nape of his neck. He also liked helping people, whether promoting the careers of young artists through the Visiting Artist program at Midwestern and bringing their works to the attention of collectors or taking in friends when their lives were in transition and they needed a place to live. He said over the years that the most deeply felt spiritual experience of his life occurred during the days following the 1979 Wichita Falls tornado when he and a colleague drove a pickup around the city helping people in need. These things, too, were integral to the sum of the man.

Richard was preceded in death by his parents, Margaret and Richard (Dick) Ash of Anacortes, Washington. He is survived by his wife Elizabeth Yarosz-Ash of Wichita Falls, Texas; brother and sister-in-law Michael and Susan Ash of Anacortes, Washington; nephew Joshua Ash also of Anacortes; and by a disparate group of friends, fellow artists, and former students near and far who knew that in Richard was a man worth knowing.

A memorial service is planned for the WFMA at MSU in the near future. In memory of Richard Martin Ash III, contributions may be made to MD Anderson Cancer Center, P.O. Box 4486, Houston, TX 77210-4486 or www.mdanderson.org/gifts.