Richard Burkhart

 

Born Washington D.C. 1949.

 

 

1955-57. British public schools in Lincolnshire, England     

 

 

 

 

1961-1964. Phoenix, Arizona. 

 

 

1964  San Rafael in the San Francisco Bay Area. The psychedelic atmosphere of the bay area and continued difficulties with the law led to dropping out of high school and working nights full-time in a gas station.

 

 

1968-1972. US Naval Submarine Service. Serving on the nuclear Polaris submarine USS James Monroe, stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, operating out of Guam. 

 

 

 

   

1972-1976.  On discharge from military service remained in Hawaii to live and decompress. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1976. Enrolled in the University of Hawaii to study painting and photography under the G.I. bill. 

 

 

 

 

1980. Accepted in the graduate fine art program at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. , graduating MFA in 1983.

1988 to 1992.  Completed the graduate art history program at Hunter College (City University of New York) in Manhattan focusing on the emergence of American Abstraction.

 

 

 

1985.  First return trip to Europe in 1985 to visit Berlin. 

 

 

 

 

1985-1998.  Freelance photographer in New York City.

1988-1998. Regularly attending performance art and dance theater that was flourishing at that time in New York City.

Winter 1997-98. Spent three months working in sculpture ateliers in Pietrasanta, Italy.

1998. Transferred to Bologna, Italy. Working as freelance photographer and intensely pursuing abstraction in painting.

2003 to present.  Organizer of  the Figure Drawing Workshop. Open weekly life drawing and painting sessions in Bologna.

2004. Began teaching English as second language.