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Memoir/Obituary
Richard Hall Jennings
Regents' Proceedings 127
Regents' Proceedings 127
The sudden death of RICHARD HALL JENNINGS, Associate Professor of Art, on September the twenty-eighth, has profoundly grieved his friends within the University and his acquaintances in the larger national community of artists and designers.
Professor Jennings was born in Detroit in 1917, was schooled in Oakville, Ontario, and earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Stanford University in 1938 and 1939 respectively. After working for two years as a biological consultant to Fidanque and Sons in Panama and serving for four years as a naval officer, he returned to Detroit, studied at the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts, and embarked upon a career in design. Among the works, which he executed while in Detroit are murals for the J. L. Hudson Company, and fountains and pools for the Ford Motor Company and for stores and shopping centers in Cleveland and Indianapolis. Since joining the University faculty in 1958, he has designed murals and decorative fountains for shopping centers at Livonia and Arborland, and fountains for the Dearborn Campus and for the International Trade Fair held in Cairo in 1961. He further devised novel and ingenious impeller systems, which developed significant new potentialities for fountain design.
To his formal University duties, Professor Jennings brought his accustomed enthusiasm, generosity, and freshness of insight. The work of his classes was uniformly impressive, and he went far beyond the call of duty in his service to student groups, to his department, and to the University at large. The University promoted him to Assistant Professor in 1959 and to Associate Professor in 1962.
His fellows in the Department of Art mourn the loss of an accomplished colleague and a warm friend, and designers everywhere regret the early cutting off of his versatile, creative career. The Regents of the University now express their own admiration for his accomplishments and their sorrow for his untimely death. To Mrs. Jennings and the other members of his family, they tender their deepest sympathy.