Bob Richey graduated from Penn State University in 1971, earning a B.S. degree in Aerospace Engineering. During a 25 year engineering career designing and analyzing aircraft structures with the United States Navy, Bob always maintained his childhood passion for creating works of art. Bob is mainly self taught although he did study with several local professional artists during his early period with the goal of perfecting his own artwork to a professional level. His dream of someday becoming a full time professional artist came true in 1996, when he was able to take advantage of an early retirement offer from his engineering position.
Bob's passion for creating art led him first to watercolor before he finally settled on soft pastels as his primary medium. Bob truly enjoys drawing and painting with soft pastels. He usually concentrates on relatively small format landscapes, completed in a single sitting. Bob likes to compare his drawings to a short story, communicating a simple theme, a subtle mood. Working in a modest scale allows him to explore many compositions and capture the essence of the moment on paper. More recently Bob has explored somewhat larger scale compositions. Bob's works put a strong emphasis on both composition and color.
Bob's work has won dozens of awards at both the regional and national level. He has received awards from the Woodmere Art Museum, Phillips Mill, Bianco Gallery, Artsbridge, Main Line Art Center, Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Annual, Cape May County Art League and the Philadelphia Sketch Club. One of the artist's works won a purchase award from the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown.
In 2007 the artist's pastels have been accepted into national juried exhibitions hosted by the Pastel Society of Maryland and the Pastel Society of New Mexico. Earlier this year one of the artist's pastels was accepted into the Cheltenham Art Center Awards Painting Exhibition, a highly respected regional juried art competition. The artist recently was awarded the "Best in Show" award at the 2007 New Hope Fine Arts & Crafts Festival. In addition the artist was awarded the "best pastel" award at the 2007 Annual Juried Show sponsored by the Mixed Media Gallery in Doylestown, Pa.
Two of the artist's pastels have recently been exhibited in the Pastel National 2008 Exhibition held at the Wichita Center for the Arts in Wichita Kansas. Most recently one of the artist's works has been accepted into the Great Lakes Pastel Society, Small Paintings - National Competition to be exhibited this summer at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The artist's profile is maintained on the James Michener Museum's website under the category, "Bucks County Artists".
Bob was one of the 50 artists featured in the book, "Artists of the River Towns," by Doris Brandes. The artist has also been featured in many magazine and newspaper articles including Bucks County Town & Country Living magazine and Nouveau magazine.
Since 1996 over 2000 of the artist's original pastels have been purchased for private collections. Bob would like to let all of his patrons know how grateful and thankful he is for all of their enthusiastic support.
Bob and his wife Linda have two sons, Bobby and Andrew. When not doing weekend art shows, Bob and Linda enjoy training for and participating in local triathlons.
