Aug 17, 2023 - Sale 2644

Sale 2644 - Lot 313

Price Realized: $ 812
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800

ROBERT W. RICHARDS (1941-2019)


Portrait of a Man (Triptych). Three pencil on transparency drawings mounted to cream wove paper. Each 435x355 mm; 17x14 inches. One initialed in pencil, lower center recto.

Provenance: Private collection, New York.

Richards began his career as an illustrator in New York, sketching fashion collections for newspapers and beauty illustrations for brands such as L'Oréal and Revlon. He went on to create posters and illustrations for Broadway shows including Noel Coward‘s Present Laughter and Legs Diamond, one of the many shows he worked on for Peter Allen. A friend to many musicians, he created album cover art for Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, Dinah Shore, and Peggy Lee. He devoted his last years to drawing gay erotic art both as fine art and for illustrations in Mandate and other publications. In 2018, he was featured in a Kate Spade advertising campaign along with other celebrities such as Jourdan Dunn, Iris Apfel, and Jon Batisste.