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Richard Treaster | |
| Birth Date: 1932 |
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| Death Date: 2002 Artist Gallery |
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| In early childhood Richard Treaster wanted to be an artist and was totally committed to his art. A watercolor realist, Treaster, was devoted to capturing the flow of light over still life objects. He lived and worked near his farm in Henrietta, Ohio his entire life.
Perhaps in looking so carefully and repeatedly at his world and searching for profound meaning in it, he was following the advice of Thomas Eakins, an artist Treaster held in highest esteem as a painter, teacher and inspiration of honesty and integrity in art. “If America is to produce great painters Eakins said, as if young painters wish to assume a place in the history of art of their country, their first desire should be to remain in America, to peer deeper into the heart of American life, rather than spend their time abroad obtaining a superficial view of the art of the old world”.
Surrounded in life by the subjects he paints and like Eakins, Treaster did endless studies and experiments with technique and tools, but thought of these as similar to the hours of practicing that a musician must do. He did not think of techniques as an end in itself. Treaster didn’t want to be thought of as a water colorist or a tempera painter, but as a painter who works diligently in the hope that he will assume a place in the history of the art of his country.
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