About the Artist

Richard H. Fitzhugh

DC / 1944

Brief

The bottom line is my career has been architecture and fine art.  I started with architecture, but then I got even more interested in architectural renderings and fine art.  Arts and sports have always been the two favorites through my life, so I hope to pursue both for the rest of my life. 

My first phase of art, starting when I was a kid, was drawing with pencils, ink, and charcoals.  In my last year in college, I also started doing sculpture in an art class, and really liked that also.

After college I started with architecture, but in 1974, I was living in a van (I had renovated that van so I could live in it) to do something different, going to Maine for getting ready to make furniture.  But I ended up living in the van for a year and a half, since I unexpectedly started selling my drawings.  I was first up in Gloucester, MA, and when I would draw out on the coast, I was surprised that folks who saw me drawing asked if they could buy them.  I also got into a gallery in Cambridge, MA, my first time in a gallery.  I then drove down to Florida and found arts and crafts shows where I also sold well.

When I got back to the DC area, I got back to architecture, but a few years later I decided I wanted to go back to art, but then as a painter.  When I did get to painting in 1984, my favorite medium became watercolor, and still is to this day.  I also do a lot of sketching just for fun, not for selling, and also do sculpture sometimes for our home.

I started doing watercolor paintings when I moved to West Virginia, and ended up in 3 galleries in three cities close by.  But when I got married in 1995, I moved back to the DC area, and I found a new gallery in Bethesda, MD.  When I joined this gallery it was ideal, because I was selected to be the only artist there, and my paintings sold very well.  I was at the gallery for 3 years starting in 1996, but after that I went back to doing architectural renderings until 2011, and then got back to painting, and returned to the same gallery for a year.

But when I was back to painting, many friends told me to get a website.  I have finally started looking at different websites for artists selling their work, and got excited about FASO, so starting in late November this year, I did decide to get a website, so I’m now looking forward to this.

I was born in Washington, DC, 11/27/1944, but have also lived and worked in other states.  The only other country I’ve ever lived in was Georgetown, Guyana, South America, in the 1970’s.  I went there to set up an architectural firm for Bryant and Bryant Architecture.  I had so much fun there, hanging with my many Guyanese friends and playing sports.  I had worked for Bryant and Bryant here in DC, the second largest African-American architectural firm in the late 1960’s.  When I told them in 1971 that I wanted to leave the U.S. to work in another place, they asked me to set up a firm for them in Guyana, since Charles Bryant was married to the sister-in-law of Forbes Burnham, the then Prime Minister of Guyana.

Details

I’m sure most of you know that I grew up as a kid… everyone grows up that way!  In my first 2 years of elementary school, at Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA, I started loving drawing.  It was a great school, and my brother and I were the first African Americans enrolled there, 1950.  For the third grade, though, we moved back to Washington, DC.  As I got older, I also loved math and science, so when I went to college, Howard University, Washington, DC, 1962-68, I chose architecture as my major.

In my senior year in college I had thought about becoming an artist -- a sculptor -- but when I graduated, I stuck with becoming an architect.  Thirteen years later, though, after working first in DC, second in Harlem, NY, third back in DC, and fourth in Georgetown, Guyana in South America, that’s when I thought again about wanting to become an artist – this time a painter!  So I then became an architectural renderer, i.e., painting a new building designed by architects, to show how they will look when they are built.  I chose to do this because I thought it would help me to learn more of how to paint better, and that worked.

Renderings started in 1971, when I had moved back to DC from Harlem, and I knew I had to find a cheaper place to move to as an artist.  This happened when I moved back from Guyana in 1977, and after looking through the states near DC, WV became my favorite.  I found my favorite property there where I built my own home myself.  As I was doing the construction I was still also doing renderings, so when the home was pretty much completed after several years of construction, I became a fine artist in 1984, when I was 40, doing watercolor paintings, the same medium I had used for my renderings.

I lived in a very rural area in WV, so I was painting in that area.  The first month I would sketch on the paper before I painted, but I didn’t like the way that went.  So then I started with just painting, and it was much quicker and I liked the way it looked, so I’ve always done it just that way.  

After I had been painting for a few years, I learned how to paint a little differently, based on reading Betty Edward’s great book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”.  This taught me how to paint mainly by just letting your hand do it, rather than a lot of thinking and judgment.  This makes the painting quicker, more fun, and much better.  We also know that when anyone learns how to do paintings this way, they can also become an artist!

When I was in WV, the three places I sold my paintings were Gallery 1, Winchester, VA; Lazarus, LTD Department Store, Cumberland, MD; and Keith Knost Gallery, Shepherdstown, MD.  I would also do paintings in those cities, while still painting my rural surroundings – woods, mountains, rivers, and animals, but also homes. 

I married Estrellita in 1995, and we then moved to Alexandria, VA.  That’s when I got into Galerie Ingrid Cooper in Bethesda, MD., the one I mentioned above, and did well there.  So I was doing paintings in Alexandria and Potomac River, but also back in Washington, but then also NY City.  My art studio was in Springfied, VA, so I also did paintings showing what the studio looked like, both inside the studio and looking out of the studio, did paintings of Lake Accotink Park, close by, and also started doing abstracts. 

I painted from 1984 to 1999, but then I got back to doing renderings.  I continued doing renderings when we moved back to DC in 2004, and in 2011 I started painting again and got back into Galerie Ingrid Cooper for roughly a year.

My wife and I have also fallen in love with Greece, after going there the first time in 2002.  We’ve been back 3 more times enjoying the long walks in Athens and on the islands, swimming in the Mediterranian Sea, eating their food, and loving the folks we meet.  I’ve done paintings of Greece also, mainly in southern Crete, near Plakias, but also Santorini and Athens.  I would love to do a show there.

I’ve stayed with watercolor because this paint medium is transparent.  Because it’s transparent, everything you do for a painting, even when you have covered something already painted previously, you can see totally everything that has been done for the painting.  But for the watercolor painting, being able to see everything that was done, this can make the paintings look like what life is about!  We always like seeing, thinking, or hearing about something that reminds us who we are, how we were before, but also everything else we know about what life is.  That’s what watercolor means to me.