Maurice Grossman 1928 - 2010

2004 Pride Parade Maurice Grossman Grand Marshal

2004 Pride Festival Maurice Grossman Speaker

Maurice Grossman was a father, craftsman, highly talented ceramic artist & teacher, University of Arizona Professor Emeritus, WW2 Navy Veteran, LGBT community activist, and leader in the LGBT Community. Grossman was very well known around Tucson not only for his pottery which was internationally recognized, but in addition for his tireless dedication to LGBT Human Rights and his support of the Democratic Party.

"Calling him a Renaissance man isn't a cliché. He really was that kind of guy," noted Doug Noffsinger, a longtime friend and board member of the Alliance Fund, a community grants program Grossman helped found. He's probably registered more people to vote in Tucson and Pima County than any other living person," he said. "And he always did that in very festive outfits like an Uncle Sam Hat, or combinations of red, white and blue boas."

Grossman who was born in Detroit, had grown up in a very poor Jewish Family atmosphere, and later enrolled both at Wayne State University and later Ohio State University before moving to Tucson to teach at the University in 1955. Maurice founded the University of Arizona's Ceramics Program in 1956 and served as a University of Arizona Art Professor for nearly thirty five (35) years. He was fortunate to have traveled internationally to Portugal, Greece and Italy to take in the art of the many churches, museums, and other historical places.

Maurice Grossman 'Came Out' as a Gay Man after the death of his wife, and Gay Rights were always very important to him, as were the many Human Rights Movements of the 1960's and 1970's. Maurice was especially spiritually centered and taught Buddhist Meditation while always seeking to raise up others to higher awareness as a man of great generosity of his spirit, who had raised himself up from very poor urban circumstances. The opportunities Grossman created for himself along with the many wonders he attained and enjoyed in life were things he wanted to share with and give to everyone.

As a young man, Maurice Grossman worked hard and was able to study in Japan as a Fulbright Scholar. He won the University of Arizona's Creative Teaching Award and later received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1986. His son, Stephen Grossman, beginning as a housing builder, used that federal grant money for construction of an art studio in his father's backyard. Art events around Tucson always included Maurice Grossman, who always exuded a chrisma, and a big infectious laugh and wide smile.  Maurice's wife, the late Marilyn Gracey Grossman, died in 1979 while his oldest child, Barbara Jean Grossman had died of cancer also in 1979. Maurice Grossman died Thursday evening on January 21, 2012 of complications following a heart surgery proceedure at the age of  82, and the Tucson LGBT Community lost a truly valiant and charismatic supporter.

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