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New York-based Robert W Richards has made a career out of seducing people. Since his earliest homo-erotic illustrations in publications like The Advocate and Mandate, Richards’ unique style has become highly recognizable for its high-end simplicity and sexy idiosyncratic style.
''Seduction: Erotic Illustrations'' traces the artist’s work from the present back to its beginnings, proving that seduction is something at which Richards is a true master.
Born in 1941 in a small town in Maine where dreaming was not encouraged, Robert W Richards soon learned to live a private, interior, solitary life. He immersed himself in drawing an imaginary world of beautiful men and women - Gary Cooper, Garbo, Dietrich, and Marilyn. At 16, he wrangled a scholarship to the prestigious School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, but being too young to appreciate the academic discipline of the classical curriculum, Richards quit school and started doing advertising artwork. After moving to New York, he plunged into the world of fashion, sketching collections in Paris, Rome, Milan, and Los Angeles for newspapers and doing beauty illustrations for L'Oreal, Clairol, and Revlon.
After many seasons in this fashion world, fatigue set in, and his long suppressed desire to draw men took over. It was then that a career in male erotica began, with gay erotic magazines like Mandate, Honcho, Torso, Stallion and Men all featuring his artwork throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Robert is on the Board of Directors of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York.
Illustrator: Robert W. Richards.
Hardback, 96 Pages, Published March 2016.