Richard Mayhew

Richard Mayhew (born April 3, 1924)[1] is an Afro-Native American landscape painter, illustrator, and arts educator. His abstract, brightly colored landscapes are informed by his experiences as an African American/Native American and his interest in Jazz and the performing arts. He lives and works in Soquel and Santa Cruz, California.[2][3]

For the rugby union player, see Richard Mayhew (rugby union). For the South African sailor, see Rick Mayhew. For the English academic, see Richard Mayew.
Richard Mayhew
Born (1924-04-03) April 3, 1924
Amityville, New York, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
EducationArt Students League of New York, Columbia University
Alma materBrooklyn Museum Art School
Known forLandscape painting
MovementSpiral (arts alliance)
Spouses
  • Dorothy Zuccarini,
  • Rosemary Gibbons
Children2, Scott Mayhew Ina Mayhew

Life

Richard Mayhew was born on April 3, 1924, in Amityville, New York, to Native American and African American parents.[4][5][6] His father Alvin Mayhew, was of African American and Shinnecock tribe descent and his mother, Lillian Goldman Mayhew was of African American and Cherokee-Lumbee descent.[6][3] His mother would take him to New York City to see paintings, and he was inspired at a young age by George Inness paintings.[3] As a teenager he studied with medical illustrator James Willson.[3]

He had been in the United States Marines with the Montford Point Marines, rising to the rank of first sergeant during World War II.[3][7] However, in a 2019 interview, Mayhew expressed he did not identify with his time in military service and it inspired his interest in interdisciplinary studies.[3]

Mayhew studied at the Art Students League of New York and with artist Edwin Dickinson.[8] Later attending Brooklyn Museum Art School in 1948 to 1959, and studying with Reuben Tam.[9][8][3] He also took some courses at Columbia University.[9] He worked as a china decorator in the late 1940s in New York, where he met his first wife Dorothy Zuccarini.[3] He was a Jazz singer in the 1950s, performing in small clubs in New York City and in the Borscht Belt in the Catskill Mountains.[6][3] In 1955 he had his first solo exhibition in Brooklyn, and he ended his singing work.[7]

In 1958, he won the John Hay Whitney Fellowship and took his family with him to Europe.[9] In the 1960s, Mayhew illustrated children's books.[6][10]

He was a founding member of Spiral, a black painters' group in the 1960s in New York that included Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Charles White, Felrath Hines, Norman Lewis, Emma Amos, Reginald Gammon, and Hale Woodruff as members.[11][12][1][13][14][15] The Spiral collective formed in 1963, after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as a way for artists to discuss their experiences in the Civil Rights movement.[9] He was also a member of the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition.[9]

For 14 years he taught at Pennsylvania State University, starting in 1977 and retiring in 1991.[6] He taught art and/or interdisciplinary thinking at other schools around the United States, including Brooklyn Museum Art School (1963), Pratt Institute (1963), Art Students League of New York (1965), Smith College (1969), Hunter College (1971), California State University, East Bay (1974), San Jose State University (1975), Sonoma State University (1976), University of California, Santa Cruz (1992), and others.[3] He was introduced to interdisciplinary learning during his time teaching at Pratt which at the time offered different disciplines alongside art studio, and he was working alongside other instructors such as Eleanor Holmes Norton (teaching sociology), Jacob Lawrence, and William A.J. Payne (teaching anthropology).[3] Students of Mayhew include Beverly McIver, Rodney Allen Trice, among others.[3]

In 2000, Mayhew moved to Soquel in Santa Cruz County, California.[6]

A solo retrospective exhibition of Mayhew's work took place in 2009 in New York City at ZONE: Contemporary Art at 41 West 57th Street[16] The exhibition traveled to three additional venues.

Mayhew's work is featured in various permanent collections including: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA),[17] De Young (museum),[18] Metropolitan Museum of Art,[19] Whitney Museum of American Art,[5] and the Smithsonian Institution,[8] among others.

Personal life

He was married to artist Dorothy Zuccarini and together they had two children, Ina Mayhew and Scott Mayhew.[9] His second marriage was to Rosemary Gibbons.[3]

Filmography
Years Title Type Notes
2000 Richard Mayhew: Spiritual Landscapes Film documentary
2009 Richard Mayhew, on Spark for This Week in Northern California, KQED Television series [10][20]

See also

References
  1. Steven Otfinoski (2003). African Americans in the Visual Arts. Infobase Publishing. p. 131. ISBN 978-1-4381-0777-6.
  2. "The Art of Richard Mayhew: After the Rain". Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. 2009. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  3. Cooks, Bridget; Tewes, Amanda (2020). Richard Mayhew: Painting Mindscapes and Searching for Sensitivity (PDF). Oral History Center and Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. J. Paul Getty Trust.
  4. "Richard Mayhew Biography". Richard Mayhew on artnet. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  5. "Richard Mayhew: Morning Bush". Whitney Museum of American Art. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  6. Guthrie, Julian (2009-10-16). "'Art of Richard Mayhew' at MoAD". SFGATE. Retrieved 2020-11-09.
  7. Prodger, Michael (2020-06-24). "The greats outdoors: How spiritualism and race coexist in the moodscapes of Richard Mayhew". Newstatesman. Retrieved 2020-11-09.
  8. "Richard Mayhew". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  9. Schneider, Julie (2020-09-21). "At 96 Years Old, Richard Mayhew Is Still Painting Transportive "Mindscapes"". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2020-11-09.
  10. "Richard Mayhew". Spark. KQED, Inc. Retrieved 2020-11-08.
  11. "Mayhew, Richard". Pennsylvania Center for the Book. The Pennsylvania State University. Archived from the original on 25 February 2015. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  12. "'Art of Richard Mayhew' at MoAD". SFGate. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
  13. Samella S. Lewis (2003). African American Art and Artists. University of California Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-520-23935-7.
  14. "Richard Mayhew". Spark. Retrieved 2017-07-19.
  15. Otfinoski, Steven (2014-05-14). African Americans in the Visual Arts. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 9781438107776.
  16. "Gallery Discussion with Richard Mayhew, co-hosted by the MacDowell Colony". 9 April 2019.
  17. "Richard Mayhew". SFMOMA. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  18. "New Acquisition: Richard Mayhew's "Rhapsody," 2002". de Young. 2010-04-15. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  19. "Richard Mayhew | Spring Series #7 | The Met". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
  20. "This Week: Richard Mayhew". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 2020-11-09.

Further reading
  • Mayhew, Richard (2020). Transcendence. Mikaela Sardo Lamarche (introduction), Andrew Walke (essay), ACA Galleries. San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-1452178905.
  • Hess, Janet Berry (2014). Art of Richard Mayhew: A Critical Analysis with Interviews. McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786460502.
  • Cooks, Bridget R.; Mayhew, Richard (2009). The Art of Richard Mayhew. San Francisco, Calif.: Museum of the African Diaspora. ISBN 9781616232696.
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