RICHARD WYATT, JR. (1955 - )
Untitled (Portrait of a Woman).

Mixed media on board, 1973. 483x356 mm; 19x14 inches. Signed and dated in ink, lower right.

Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; private collection, California.

This experimental portrait was made before Richard Wyatt began his BFA at the University of California, Los Angeles. At the age of seventeen, Wyatt was selected to be part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's 1972 Panorama of Black Artists exhibition. His early art education began in the mid-1960s at the Watts Towers Art Center and the Studio Watts Workshop. He also attended the Tutor Art Program (established by the late Bill Tara), which met on Saturdays at the Otis Art Institute. At these Saturday sessions led by artist William Pajaud, Wyatt began studying, drawing and painting with artist and teacher Charles White.

Wyatt has taught drawing and painting at the University of California, Irvine, the Otis/Parsons Art Institute, Los Angeles and the Watts Towers Art Center, Los Angeles. For more than 35 years, Wyatt has produced art for public and corporate spaces, with more than 30 murals to his credit.