On March 12, artist Richard Posner died of gunshot wounds. His death shocked many of us who knew him because, among many other things, Richard was a pacifist who deplored violence. In the 1980s, Richard was one of a group of politically-active Seattle-based artists who worked both in public and studio art, incorporating social commentary in the work he did. He didn't believe in simply placing art in public but conceived his work as commentary on public issues. This did not always endear him to arts administrators or clients because his ideas were honed to a brilliant point that often struck its target a little too accurately. An irrepressible wit, Richard reveled in anagrams and wordplay and his works included both visual and verbal puns, often piled one upon the other.
After leaving Seattle in the early 1990s, Richard moved to Los Angeles where he continued to make art and began teaching at the University of Southern California's Public Art Program. He subsequently travelled to Germany on Fulbright fellowhips and finally back to the United States ending in Tucson, where he lived until last March.
The following links show a some of Posner's diverse works in glass and other media and the flickrpage, posnerperson, which we've named in tribute to his love of anagrams, shows many of his built public artworks and proposals:
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