Richard Haas

Pew House, 2018

Monotype

Image size: 14" x 11"

Paper size: 20 1/4" x 16"

Estimated value: $1200

Printed at CCP by Christopher Shore

Richard Haas was born in 1936 in Spring Green, Wisconsin. His father had a business in this picturesque valley which was also the home of Frank Lloyd Wright. Richard's earliest influences and exposure to the arts was through the Taliesen Foundation which he visited and worked at as a teenager with his Uncle who was a stonemason for Mr. Wright. Richard moved to Milwaukee and ultimately attended the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee receiving his B.S. degree in 1958 and his M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1964. Following his Graduate Studies Mr. Haas taught Art at Michigan State in Lansing, Michigan and then moved to New York City where he took a teaching position at Bennington College in Vermont. He taught printmaking there for nearly ten years and gave up full-time teaching to pursue his mural career in 1979. Since then Richard has completed more than 120 murals, interior and exterior. He also occasionally takes a guest teaching position and lectures nationally and internationally. Richard has received numerous prizes and honors, among them The American Institute of Architects Medal of Honor, (1977) The Municipal Art Society Award, (1977), fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987) and the Guggenheim Foundation (1983), the Doris C. Freedman Award (1989) and the Honorary Alumnus of the year from his Alma Mater, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. His murals have been commissioned as decoration for numerous public buildings in the United States. These include Chase Field; the Robert C. Byrd Federal Building & Courthouse in Beckley, West Virginia; the main branch of the New York Public Library, the Lakewood Public Library (Ohio), the Sarasota County, Florida Judicial Center and the former Board of Education building in Brooklyn, NY´. One of his most renowned works, "Brooklyn Bridge", couples both his artistic genius with his architectural background. At 1211 North LaSalle Street on the Chicago's Near North Side, a 16-story 1929 apartment hotel converted into a 1981 apartment building, was used for trompe-l'œil murals in homage to Chicago School architecture. The only European mural by Richard Haas is in Munich between Rumfordstr and Frauenstr. Is one of his earliest works, realized in 1978 in occasion of his Munich exhibition.

Haas continues to live in New York, NY, but often travels to produce his murals. Today, the artist's works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Milwaukee Art Museum, among others.