Richard Whitten
Artist Bio Artist Work
Richard Whitten grew up in Manhattan, NY, a child of Asian and American parents. He earned a B.A. in Economics from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Painting from the University of California at Davis where he studied with both Wayne Thiebaud and Robert Arneson. He has had numerous exhibitions on both coasts. Notable are major solo exhibitions at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ; the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington; and the Newport Art Museum in Newport, Rhode Island. He is represented by ArtMora Gallery, NY and Seoul, Korea; Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA; the William Scott Gallery, Provincetown, MA; and the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, CA. He is presently a Professor of Painting at Rhode Island College and recently completed a term as Department Chairperson. He is honored to have received a 2023 Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant and a 2024 Residency to Yaddo..
Click HERE to see the video featuring Richard Whitten in RISD Screening: NetWorks 2015 Artist Video Portraits.
Click HERE to read about 8 Visions, an exhibition at Attleboro Arts Museum where Richard Whitten is featured.
Artist Statement
One recurring theme I have in my dreams is the discovery of beautiful hidden architectural spaces. I find unknown buildings or hidden passages. I make efforts to get to them and to explore them. Sometimes, I can indeed explore them in the same dream. Sometimes, I have to find them again in another dream – often years later.
It is from these dream images that I construct my paintings.
My paintings imply the existence of places and of objects of desire that, like the garden and flowers in Alice in Wonderland, can be glimpsed but neither reached nor acquired.
I wish the viewer to have an almost physical sense of the transition between his or her own world and that of my paintings.
The experience is similar to the way one experiences a building or travels through a garden. It starts at the outside and moves to the center. The journey begins as the viewer realizes that the paintings are on non-rectangular wooden panels. Unlike the rectangle, which is understood to be a picture window into another space, the shaped panel is seen to be an object that exists in the world of the viewer – an object that has a physical and sculptural reality.
On these panels, the viewer finds a beautiful surface. Parts of the painting are like the marginalia of an illuminated manuscript. They act as both frame and guide into the painting. The viewer then travels through imaginary passageways, gateways, or corridors, to glimpse the private world enclosed therein.
A conceptual transformation occurs when places and things are represented as an image. They become heightened in importance – perhaps transformed into an ideal, a memory, or a desire. One must ask: is the experience of “seeing and wanting” perhaps superior to “having”?
Ultimately, my paintings are about intellectual play – an impetus for learning and exploration.
Education
1987 M.F.A., Painting, University of California, Davis, CA
1980-82 Non-Degree Studies in Painting, Yale University, New Haven, CT
1980 B.A., Economics, Cum Laude, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Teaching
2006-present
Rhode Island College, Providence, RI; Professor
2016-2018
Rhode Island College, Providence, RI; Professor, Department Chair
1998-present
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; Instructor: Summer Programs
1996-2005
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, MA; Lecturer
1995-97
University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT; Visiting Assistant Professor
1992-2006
Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI; Visiting Critic, School of Architecture
1989-91
Penn State University, University Park, PA; Assistant Professor
Public Collections
Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ
Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY
Manetti Shrem Museum, Davis, CA
Ballinglen Museum of Contemporary Art, Ballycastle, Ireland
Triton Art Museum, Santa Clara, CA
Zillman Art Museum (University of Maine Museum of Art), Bangor, ME
Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI
Transmedia Art Walk – a collection of outdoor Murals and Sculptures, Davis, CA
Attleboro Art Museum, Attleboro, MA
Gilbertsville Expressive Movement Foundation Sculpture Park, Gilbertsville, NY
Fidelity Investments, Smithfield. RI
Collegiate School, New York, NY
Awards and Fellowships
2024
Yaddo Residency
2023-24
Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant
2023
Golden Apple Residency, Fellowship
RI State Council on the Arts Make Art Grant
2022
RI State Council on the Arts Make Art Grant
2021
Berkshire Taconic Artist Resource Trust Grant
Golden Apple Residency, Fellowship
2019
Gilbertsville Expressive Movement Fellowship and Residency
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowships
Keynote Speaker: Art of Painting Conference, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2018
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowships
2017
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowships
Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, Fellowship in Painting Merit Award
Speaker, Presence of China: International, Sanya, Hainan Province, China
2016
Speaker, Leonard Lecture Series, University of Maine Museum of Art
Keynote Speaker: Art of Painting Conference, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
2013
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowships
2015
Networks 2015, RI PBS Video
2007
Ballinglen Foundation Fellowship, Ballycastle, Ireland
1996
The E. D. Foundation Grant, Kearny, NJ
1995
The E. D. Foundation Grant, Kearny, NJ
1993
Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, Artist Project Grant, Providence, RI
1990
Graham Foundation Grant, Chicago, IL
1986-87
University of California Regents’ Fellowship, Davis, CA
1985-86
University of California Regents’ Fellowship, Davis, CA
1983
Artists’ Space Exhibition Grant, New York, NY
Selected Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions
Summer 2026
Richard Whitten and Jerry DeCamp, Galerie Étienne de Causans, Paris, France
Fall 2025
"The Galileo Project" Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College, Providence, RI
Fall 2024
Whitten, Sabbatical Exhibition, Bannister Gallery, Rhode Island College, Providence, RI
Summer 2024
“Set in Motion: Kinetic Worlds from the Studio of Richard Whitten”
Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ
2023
"A Cabinet of Curious Matters," Richard Whitten and Nancy Callahan,
Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY
William Scott Gallery, Provincetown , MA
2022
Art Mora Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2021
“Games” Art Mora Gallery, Ridgefield, NJ
McGlothlin Center for the Arts, Emory and Henry College; Emory, VA
William Scott Gallery, Provincetown, MA
2019
William Scott Gallery, Provincetown, MA
“Science FictionS”, Jamestown Art Center, Jamestown, RI
2018
Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA
Chazan Gallery at Wheeler School, Providence, RI
2017
URI Main Gallery, Kingston, RI
Cotuit Center for the Arts, Cotuit, MA
“Hidden Worlds” Art Mora Gallery, New York, NY
Art Mora Gallery, Ridgefield, NJ
2016
“Studiolo”, University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME
2015
“Experiments” Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, Vermont
2014
Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA
Dedee Shattuck Gallery, Westport, MA
Sabbatical Exhibition, “Wunderkabinett” Bannister Gallery, Providence, RI
“Sacre Rouge” Trustman Gallery, Simmons College, Boston, MA
2013
“Wunderkammer”, Anderson Gallery, Bridgewater University, Bridgewater, MA
2011
“Allegory, Metaphor, and Paradox” Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, RI
“Details of Thought” Towne Gallery, Wheelock College, Boston, MA
2010
Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA
2009
“Richard Whitten: Passageways”, Beard Gallery, Wheaton College, Norton, MA
2008
Lenore Gray Gallery, Providence, RI
2006
Lenore Gray Gallery, Providence, RI
1997
“Richard Whitten: Invisible Cities”, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
1994
Virginia Lynch Gallery, Tiverton, RI
1993
“Reflection and Invention” Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI
1992
Virginia Lynch Gallery, Tiverton, RI
1990
Mincher-Wilcox Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1989
Mincher-Wilcox Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1987
MFA Graduate Show, Shackelford & Sears Gallery, Davis, CA
1986
“Harlequin Series” Basement Workshop Gallery, New York, NY
Selected Group Exhibitions
Summer 2024
NetWorks Rhode Island and the Chazan Collection: A Half-Century of RI Artistic Patronage
2023
“The Point of Precision”, OYG Projects, Brooklyn, NY
“Unreal” John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA, catalog essay by John Seed
2022
"Conversational", Arts on the Lake Art Center, Carmel, NY
2021
"Between Color and Value" Ballinglen Museum of Art, Ballycastle, Ireland
2019-2020
“Raid the Icebox, Triple Canopy: Defining Asian, RISD Museum, Providence, RI
2020, 2019, 2017
Art Mora Gallery Seoul, Korea
2017
“Art of Painting” curated by Edward Lucie Smith, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
RISCA Fellowships 2017 Imago Gallery, Warren, RI
Presence of China: International Contemporary Art Forum, Sanya, Hainan Province, China
2016
“The Great California Art Movement, 1960s-1990s”, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
“Networks 2015/16” Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI
“What’s the Big Idea?” Paintings from the U of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME
2015
“The Thing Itself” (curated by John Yau), Center for Contemporary Art, Bedminster, NJ
2013, 2008
“8 Visions” Attleboro Arts Museum, Attleboro Arts Museum
2012
Newport Art Museum: Reconnection/Recollection II, Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI
1998
“Director’s Choice” Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA
1996
“Artists of New England Triennial,” Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, MA
1995
Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY
1990
“Invitational,” Michael Walls Gallery, New York, NY
Bibliography (selected)
“Collage, Sculpture and Composition t satr at UMMA’s upcoming exhibitions” January 14, 2016
Shelby Hartin, Bangor Daily News
“Renaissance Man”, Kevin J. Kelly, Seven Days, Burlington, VT , March 18, 2015
Richard Whitten “Experiments”, Suzanne Volmer, Artscope March/April 2015
“Objects of Wonder: Painting and Sculptures by Richard Whitten,” Sept. 27, 2014
Hyperallergic Review, Natasha Seaman
“Richard Whitten”, Essay by Isabel Mattia, Lead Curator, September 2014
Exhibition Catalogue: Dedee Shattuck Gallery
“Toy Story”, Lindsay Tucker, Boston Magazine Home Summer 2014
“Playing all the way down the Rabbit Hole”, Ashley Jeffards, The Anchor, April 7. 2014
“Old Master Meets Steampunk”, Bill Van Siclen, Providence Journal, April 3, 2014
“Wunderkabinett: A Cabinet of Curiosities, April 2013
Catalog article by John Yau, Professor of Art Criticism, Rutgers University
“Sacre Rouge: Richard Whitten”, Brigitt Lynch, Director, Trustman Gallery, February 2014
Exhibition Catalogue: Trustman Gallery, Simmons College
“Wunderkammer: Paintings by Richard Whitten, John Winters, July-August 2013
Art New England
“Richard Whitten: Wunderkammer”; Bridgewater University Exhibition
Catalogue Essay by Judith Tolnick Editor Art New England 2013
“Richard Whitten: Passageways”; Wheaton College Exhibition Catalogue 2009
Essay by Ann Murray, Prof. of Art History and Director, Beard Gallery
Curatorial Projects
2026
Elena Peteva: Drawings and Installations, Bannister Gallery, RI College, Providence, RI
2025
Alan Feltus and Lani Irwin: Paintings, Bannister Gallery, RI College, Providence, RI
2024
Charles Goolsby: Paintings, Bannister Gallery, RI College, Providence, RI
2023
John O’Connor: Drawings, Bannister Gallery, RI College, Providence, RI
2019
John De Melim Memorial Exhibition, RI College, Providence, RI
2016
Brian Rutenberg: Paintings, Bannister Gallery, RI College, Providence, RI
Barbara Takenaga: Paintings, Bannister Gallery, RI College, Providence, RI
2009
Eve Aschheim: Paintings, Bannister Gallery, RI College, Providence Island NC, RI
2007
Anne and Dan Leone: Paintings, Bannister Gallery, RI College, Providence, RI