With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Mischa Richter
Painting/Drawing
1910 – 2001
A painter and cartoonist best known for his numerous contributions to The New Yorker, he was a resident of Ridgefield.
- Biography/Description of Work
Born in Kharkov, Russia, where his father was the city’s Commissar of Waterworks, as a boy Richter learned drawing from art tutors. After his uncle joined the Red Army and was killed in 1917, his parents decided to flee the Revolution; they arrived in the United States in 1922 when he was 11 years old. Studying art at Boston’s Museum School in 1929-30, he became friends with Will Barnet. He then studied at Yale University under Eugene Savage, graduating in 1934. Barnet introduced Richter to his sister-in-law, the painter Helen Sinclair Annand, and the couple married. After Yale, he completed a WPA mural in Boston, and in 1940-41, Richter worked for the Connecticut WPA project. His painting was influenced by the abstract expressionists, and he began developing a political cartoon style in the late 1930s. Richter’s work was exhibited at the Hartford Atheneum and the Silvermine Guild of Artists. Between 1942 and 2000, some 1,500 cartoons were published in The New Yorker.
- Sources view
- Uconn database, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischa_Richter, http://provincetownartistregistry.com/R/richter_mischa.html, http://wpa.cslib.org/index.php/544/richter-mischa/, Mischa Richter Obituary - 2001-3-27, https://ctstatelibrary.org/richter-mischa/ Westport Historical Society New Yorker Cover Art Exhibit
- Associated Resource(s)
- n/a