Richard (Dick) W. Marvin
Richard “Dick” Marvin was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, July 4, 1942, at Providence Hospital. His early years were shaped by the disruptions of the Second World War. While his father, Wendell Marvin, was in hospital in England recovering from battle wounds suffered during the Italian campaign service, Dick’s mother Elise, ran away with a CPR brakeman bound for Vancouver, leaving three-year-old Dick in the care of his paternal grandparents, Amos and Rose Marvin. As both were working full-time and raising teenage children, they were unable to care for Dick long term, and placed him in the care of the Sisters of St. Louis, at St. Louis College in Moose Jaw, where he lived until he was eight, visiting his grandparents once a month.
In 1949, Dick moved to Regina to live with his father, and new stepmother, Neva Thornton. Wendell had begun working at the architectural firm of Van Egmond and Story, which he would eventually come to own, the firm becoming Marvin and Vanstone. On Sunday afternoons at his stepmother’s parents’ home—where play and conversation were discouraged—Dick and his father would sit at the dining room table copying the images of the great 20th century American illustrators whose work was found in magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, McCall’s, and Ladies’ Home Journal. Those sessions sparked Dick’s fascination with illustration and his early desire to become an illustrator himself. Dick attended Victoria Public School and later Balfour Technical High School, where his artistic talent began to emerge under the mentorship of art teacher Margaret Messer, who guided him towards the Ontario College of Art (OCA) in Toronto.
In February 1960, Diane Miller invited Dick to the Sadie Hawkins dance after which they became a couple and later married in Toronto, on August 31st 1963. They were married until her passing on October 9, 2013.
In July 1960, shortly after turning 18, Dick moved to Toronto, to enter the Foundation Studies program at the OCA, studying under instructors such as Jock MacDonald, Eric Freifeld, and Lilly Maley, who gave him a grounding in drawing, painting, and design. By second year, Dick’s confidence and technical ability had grown significantly when he began specializing in advertising illustration. The focused instruction of his courses, and close camaraderie of his fellow illustrators helped him thrive creatively over the next three years.
Upon graduating in 1964, Dick began his illustration career at the full service art studio, Studio 43, where he worked briefly before being laid off when the studio lost a major client. This first and only salaried position helped him build important professional connections. He then transitioned to freelance work, and gained experience with steady work from a number of firms while developing his own client base. Invited by mentor Will Davies to share studios at 33 Avenue Road in Yorkville for nearly two years, Dick described the period as invaluable professional training. After travelling to England and Europe in 1967, he returned to Toronto to freelance out of John Moles & Associates, producing TV storyboards, advertising layouts, and finished art. From 1976 to 1989, he leased a studio at 62½ Yorkville Avenue, sharing it with fellow illustrators Will Davies, Tom Bjarneson, Tom McNeely, and Roger Hill. In 1973, Dick and Diane moved to Moffat, Ontario. By the late 1980s, with the advent of call forwarding and fax machines, he was able to work exclusively from his home studio. Over a 26-year freelance career from 1964 to 1990, Dick built a strong reputation through hard work, networking, and perseverance, working with major clients such as Fisher Price Toys, Uniroyal, British American Oil (Petro Canada), Plymouth Chrysler, United States Travel Service, Gilbey’s Gin, and Reader’s Digest.
In addition to freelancing, Dick was an instructor at OCA. In the fall of 1974, he began teaching a core course called An Introduction to Traditional Media. Dick declined the offer twice before due to a lack of formal teacher training, but accepted on the third request and found the experience both successful and rewarding. He continued teaching the course annually until 1988. Having taken Media as a first-year student himself, Dick recognized opportunities to strengthen the course. He used his professional experience to redesign the curriculum, making it more practical, engaging, and relevant to students’ future careers.
Recognizing the industry shift from print, to television and digital media, Dick and Diane established two successful side businesses alongside his freelance illustration career: Merri-Mar Maple Products and Marvin’s Pick-Your-Own Orchard. Merri-Mar started as a small seasonal project with friends Don and Brenda Merriman, making just a few gallons of syrup on the side of the driveway in a 3 x 6 foot flat pan. It later grew into a full-scale operation with a sugar shack, 2,600 taps on vacuum, and an oil fired evaporator. To support its main line of production, maple confections, Merri-Mar annually purchased more than 3,000 gallons of maple syrup from two large Quebec producers. Using this additional supply, the company produced an annual total of 38,000 pounds of maple confections, which were sold across Canada and promoted at the spring and fall national gift shows at the CNE in Toronto.
Started in 1975 with apple, pear, and plum trees, the orchard expanded over three years to 2,200 trees on 15 acres. In 1987, Dick and Diane built an 11,000 square foot roadside market in Aberfoyle complete with restaurant, bakery, flower shop, deli, produce, and cold storage. The market however, was ahead of its time, and managing a 30-person operation became overwhelming. When the Village of Aberfoyle rezoned the property from agricultural to residential, Dick and Diane took advantage of this and closed that chapter of their lives.
In October 1989, a transformative opportunity arose when Dick’s friend Dudley Witney invited him on a month-long trip to England where Dudley gathered imagery for his book The Moorlands of England. The experience offered a much-needed reset and reignited Dick’s commitment to his artistic roots, leading him back to painting landscapes both en plein air and in the studio.
In the spring and summer of 1990, Dick and Diane built a 3,000 square-foot, two-storey Georgian home with a spacious studio on a two-acre severance at the northeast corner of their farm. Over the next two years, Dick focused on honing his watercolour techniques and began teaching a 20-week Saturday morning watercolour workshop for twelve students, establishing a new chapter in his creative life.
In 1991, through Diane’s connection at a bookkeeping client’s office, Dick was asked to create illustrations and sales brochures for Charlie Kuiken, who was launching Charleston Homes. Impressed by his work, Kuiken invited Dick to assist with design and sales while he managed construction. Dick accepted and worked with Charleston Homes in a Sales and Marketing capacity from January 1992 until June 2008. In 2001, Dick and Diane moved into a Charleston Homes townhome in the village of Rockwood. While at Charleston Homes, Dick maintained his parallel career as a plein air and studio painter.
Sadly, Diane passed away shortly after their 50th wedding anniversary in 2013. In time, Dick was fortunate to find profound love again. The following year, on November 28, Dick married fellow artist Judy French, and together they settled in the picturesque Village of Elora, Ontario, where they maintained their home and studios. They opened their studios to the public during the annual Elora Fergus Studio tour between 2015 – 2024.
Between 2002 and 2016, Dick spent most summers travelling and painting en plein air across Canada, from coast to coast, as well as in the western United States. His artistic focus encompassed the field patterns, traditional rural architecture, and local wildlife of these regions, along with the farms of Wellington, Huron, Bruce, and Grey Counties in Ontario, which became central themes in his work.
Since 2020, a decrease in Dick’s mobility necessitated a switch in focus from en plein air landscape to still life painting. Looking for learning opportunities during the COVID lockdowns, Dick discovered painters Paul Foxton and Ian Roberts, both of whom had established sophisticated, interactive workshops. These experiences invigorated Dick’s exploration of an expanded range of subjects and variation in technical approaches, with a renewed sense of focus and perspective.
Dick participated in a variety of sports and recreational activities throughout his life. In his youth, he played interschool ice hockey, and little league baseball for the United Commercial Travellers Cubs (UTC Cubs) in Regina. During high school, he was part of the Balfour Redmen football team. Outside of organized sports, As a young adult, Dick enjoyed duck hunting with the springer spaniels he raised and trained, as well as fishing, working in the woods, and raising his children, Jenny and Peter. His interests also included travelling to new places, experimenting with cooking, and hosting gatherings where he brought people together over good food, drink, and conversation. He was particularly known for his excellent storytelling, which made him a lively and engaging presence at any occasion. Finally, Dick had been a Blue Jays fan since their establishment in 1977, something that he and Judy took very seriously and enjoyed immensely. Should you wish to see them during the season, you had to be willing to watch the game!
Dick is survived by his wife, Judy French; his children with his late wife, Diane Miller, Jennifer Marvin (Cameron) and Peter Marvin (Charity); his grandchildren, Kiran and Jonah Marvin, Owen and Robert Murphy; brother Ken (Cheryl) Marvin and sister Ann (Ken) Albertan; and brother-in-law to Irene Campbell, Robert Galbraith, and Jennifer McCleese. He was also uncle to Darren, Angela, David, Brianne, and Beth.
He was predeceased by his wife, Diane (Miller); his parents, Wendell Marvin and Elise (Belevance); his stepmother, Neva (Thornton); his uncle, Ron Marvin; his aunt, Marie Roman (Marvin); his brother in law Grant Campbell, and his niece, D’Arcy Campbell.
A celebration of life will occur late spring / early summer. Arrangements entrusted to the WALL-CUSTANCE FUNERAL HOME & CHAPEL 519-822-0051 / www.wallcustance.com.
Donations to Hospice Wellington in Dick’s name would be greatly appreciated.
A tree will be planted in memory of Richard (Dick) W. Marvin in the Wall-Custance Memorial Forest.