Banner: Detail from Genius Loci by Richard Coward

Richard Coward

Richard started out as a fashion photographer working in black and white, but by the time of his death he had added printmaking, abstract painting, etching and film-making to his skills.

Richard started taking photographs when he was 10 years old and would develop and print them in a darkroom under the stairs in his parents’ house in south London. The photograph on the “About Us’ page of Sunset over Aberystwyth was taken, aged 10, when he was on holiday with his parents

Richard left school in Cheam at 16 and started working at an advertising agency in Soho as a runner. After a few months there, he moved to a photographic studio in Chelsea.

Living and working in central London in the '60s, Richard had fun but also worked hard at his photography. He specialized in black-and-white portrait photography and was largely self-taught, although he did obtain a degree at the Polytechnic of Central London (now University of Westminster) in the late '80s where he experimented with various alternative photographic processes.

In the early '70s, to supplement his freelance work, Richard turned to teaching part-time, first at Bournemouth School of Art, then Portsmouth College of Art, and, for many years, at the Cass School of Art in Whitechapel, east London.

By the end of the '70s Richard had acquired his first studio in Wapping, east London. Among those he photographed there were Simple Minds and the Sham 69 front man Jimmy Pursey. He also became very interested in filmmaking and was involved in the making of several short films including an early documentary on the work of the composer Michael Nyman.

After moving to Norwich in 1991, Richard took up silkscreen printing and, over the years spent there, produced a large body of very colourful, abstract, oil based silkscreen monoprints. He had several exhibitions of his prints both in the UK and abroad.

A selection of Richard's photographic work is in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in London and in the collections of the Scottish Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. Churchill College, Cambridge and The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic at Edinburgh University have a selection of his silkscreen monoprints in their collections.

Works from both his photographic and his silkscreen monoprints are also in private collections in the UK and abroad.

To view more of Richard's work, go to: www.richardcowardphotography.com

Richard's abstract and colourful silkscreen monoprints, all executed in oil, can be purchased via the above website. The net proceeds from the sale of these works will help to support the Foundation.