BIOGRAPHY

Richard J. Watson

Richard Watson has earned a reputation in and around Philadelphia as a post-modern “Renaissance Man” This well-deserved reputation stems from his successful work as a canvas painter, muralist, exhibition curator and artist who ventures beyond his studio to engage the wider arts community. 

 Born March 24^th, 1946 in Badin, North Carolina, Watson had no real artistic influences during his early years. His mother died when was three years old, leaving him and an older brother to be raised by his father and grandparents. From his grandfather, Richard often heard stories about the south, slavery, and sharecropping: his father also recounted tales of country living and the Great Depression. Told through several generations, these stories instilled in him a strong sense of family bonding and creative inspiration: his art recycles these experiences. When he was eight years old. Watson and his brother Ponzie, were sent to live in Queens, New York with their mother’s sister, Gladys. There he found both a greater degree of visual stimulation and a landscape vastly different from rural Noth Carolina. While the billboards and advertisements of New York stimulated Watson’s creativity, he also found that drawing with pencils and watercolors afforded, him refuge from the disruption of the city’s busy streets. Watson’s stay in New York was short – lived. By the late 1950’s, he moved to Philadelphia. Coming of age during the turbulent 1960s, he was profoundly affected by several forces that shaped his development as an artist: the Civil Rights and antiwar movements, the breaking of social barriers, the psychedelic pop culture of downtown Philadelphia, and most importantly, the influence of local artists.

 As a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Watson studied painting and drawing, and became aware of other African American artists. While at PAFA, Watson studied closely with Louis Sloan and Julian Levy. Not only did he hone his technical skills as an artist, he became involved in community art projects as well. A talented theater artist and actor, he worked closely with John E. Allen Jr. at the Freedom Theatre and later taught drama for the Model Cities Cultural Arts Program. An elite group of older artists, including Fred Bacon, Turner C. Battle and Kenneth Snipes were an inspiration to him. In the early 1970s, a commitment from the late Father Paul M. Washington, of the Church of the Advocate(18^th and Diamond Sts, Phila.) to execute a mural depicting the African American  Struggle gave Watson wide public exposure and established him as a major force in the visual arts movement. Since then, Watson has received many mural and portrait commissions. Watson’s quiet manner belies his creative drive and determination to shape a body of work comprised of three distinct styles, each shaped by his unique experiences. Ancestral Memories explores landscape painting, often including figures reminiscent of sharecroppers at harvest time. A second group of works presents images of contemporary women whose romantic charm and sensibilities place them outside of contemporary life. Another of his groups of works establishes a dialogue with deceased members of his family. Watson introduces found objects and collage materials to futher articulate his connections to spirit and form. Richard J. Watson’s Art combines a romantic longing for a past with a recognizable reality of the present. Extending beyond the visual arts, Richard J. Watson is an avid writer of poetry and short stories and performs regularly as a singer/songwriter with banjo and guitar………………………..
TO BE CONTINUED