Benician Micheal Nourot, known worldwide for his art, was 66

Micheal Nourot, founder of award-winning Nourot Glass Studio whose clients have included presidents and the pope, has died. He was 66.

Citing health problems, including illnesses he contracted in connection with travels to South America, the blown glass artist retired in 2012, concluding a career that spanned about 40 years.

However, even after retirement Nourot often showed up at the studio he founded, and remained involved in the Benicia art community, including contributing to the city’s first public art piece, “Wind, Water, Land,” at Benicia Community Center.

Nourot, who died Thursday at Kaiser Permanente, Vallejo, was born in Riverside and grew up in a military family that also lived in Fairfield and Davis. He earned his bachelor’s degree from California College of the Arts, Oakland, where he changed his interest from weaving to a new endeavor, glass art.

Later, when teaching at the college, he met his future wife, Ann Corcoran.

After graduation, Nourot was nominated to work with Dale Chihuly and Jamie Carpenterb in building the first glass studio at the Philchuck Glass School, Standwood, Wash. The next year, he went to the island of Murano, Italy, to work at Venini, the largest and most successful of the Murano glass furnaces.

Nourot was the only American to be hired as a member of the Venini studio’s crew, apprenticing under glass master Checo Ongaro. When he returned to the Bay Area, he chose to build the first contemporary art glass studio in the United States, in Eric Sinizer’s shop in Ghirardelli Square.

After marrying Corcoran, the couple relocated their blown glass studio to Benicia in August 1974.

Not only has Nourot’s Benicia studio produced award-winning art with a reputation known worldwide, it also has produced artists.

David Lindsay, who now has his own studio and showcase in downtown Benicia, worked for Nourot for 20 years.

Nourot’s son, Nicolas, 31, also has learned the art and continues to operate the studio his father founded.

Micheal Nourot specialized in red glass, particularly “Red Satin” and “Scarlet Nova,” the formula for which are still long-kept family secrets inspired by his education in Italy.

“For me, glassblowing is the dance,” he said in a 2012 interview with The Herald. “I love dancing with the glass. I’m a nature guy. I love outdoor stuff. The inspiration for my art is sunlight on water. And that’s what I like about Benicia.”

His creations, both blown and slumped glass, are both functional and decorative.

The glass art has ranged from lighting to awards, series work to commissioned pieces for architects, designers and individual clients.

Among his recent commissions was substantial lighting for the Firehouse Grill in Idaho Falls, Idaho, as well as his contributions to the glass panels that make up “Wind, Water, Land.”

Local artist Mike Kendall, who also worked on the city’s first public art piece, said the project “set up a wonderful interaction” that led to the artists, including Nourot, feeling “so full of happiness and pride to have all worked together and have done something for the city.

“I feel really blessed to have been a part of that with him.”

Kendall moved to Benicia in 1991, setting up his studio in the old Yuba Manufacturing building.

“Nourot was there, and they always treated us really good. We’d piggyback onto their open studios and they never got bent out of shape,” Kendall said.

Nourot made glass art for Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. In 1987, he received a call for a special commission: he was asked to make communion platters, pitchers and goblets for the celebration of Mass by Pope John Paul II at Candlestick Park, San Francisco. Nourot’s studio turned out 1,200 individual pieces, including a special plate on which the pope’s hat would rest.

Another request led Nourot to create several art pieces that were given to Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, the municipality that is Benicia’s sister city.

Locally, his work also is seen at BioRad and Sutter Solano Hospital, both long-standing clients.

“It’s hard to overestimate Micheal Nourot’s importance to the art scene in Benicia,” said Larnie Fox, former director of Arts Benicia. “Benicia has been known for its fine art glass since the ’70s. It was Micheal Nourot and Anne Corcoran who brought that tradition here. …

“Michael studied not only with Italian masters, but with American masters as well, notably Dale Chihuly. Nourot Glass has been a huge presence in the art scene here and big supporters of Arts Benicia for many years.

“Michael had begun a new body of work in recent years, recycling beautiful but broken pieces of glass from his many years of glass blowing into new fused glass artworks.

“His artistic presence and his mischievous smile will be sorely missed.”

Among Nourot’s survivors is Ann Corcoran, to whom he was married for more than 40 years; his sons Gabriel and Nicholas; his daughter and son-in-law, Lois and Bryan Baeta; three grandchildren, three brothers, three sisters, a future daughter-in-law, Jessi Moran, and numerous nieces and nephews. Many members of the family as well as friends were with him when he died, Corcoran said.

Coming from an eight-sibling family that grew up associated with the Air Force, Nourot had a practical outlook, his son Nicholas said.

“He always said that he was raised in the school of hard knocks,” Nicholas explained.

Nourot asked his family not to have a service, though the Nourot Glass Gallery is planning an exhibit dedicated to his career.

In addition, a memorial will take place at 3 p.m. June 19 at the Wednesday Club, 225 Sacramento St., Suisun City. Family members have asked that donations in his name be given to Cal Trout, Flood Building, 360 Pine St., San Francisco 94104.