It is with shock and sorrow that we must post the awful news that Jann Marson died of a heart attack on Saturday, at the age of 44.
Jann had been living and teaching in Portland for the last few years. For those of you who never got a chance to know him, Jann was writing his dissertation on the Belgian Surrealist Marcel Mariën.
Jann had a varied career before coming to U of T to do his MA and PhD, founding and running his own press for artists’ books as well as working for other printing houses, and performing as a bassist in the band Graveltruck. When he arrived at U of T from Idaho, he embraced his studies wholeheartedly. His brilliance was widely recognised; he was awarded a SSHRC Vanier, a Fulbright, and a Getty residential fellowship. He published his first article in Book Historyin 2013 (he was in the collaborative graduate program in Book History and Print Culture as well as the Graduate Department of Art). He had assembled a great deal of unpublished primary source material on Mariën through intensive archival work, and he was set to defend his dissertation this year.
Jann touched the lives of many through his music, artists’ books, teaching, writing, and of course his presence. He was devoted to his students at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. He had also in recent years found happiness with his partner Luna and her two children in Portland. He will be profoundly missed.
– Alison Syme