Richard Winther was considered one of the major Danish artists of the 20th century. He explored the arts extensively and his prolific career focused mainly on painting, graphics, photography and sculpture. Richard's work was greatly influenced by Asger Jorn

Asger Jorn

Asger Oluf Jorn was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International...

 and Richard Mortensen

Richard Mortensen

Richard Mortensen was a Danish painter.Mortensen studied between 1931 and 1932 at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen. Influenced by the works of Wassily Kandinsky, he developed an abstract style...

, both Danish artists part of the Linien group.

Background

Richard Winther was born Richard Ludvig Philip Weibull Winther. The second of two children, Richard Winther's father was Carl Christian Winther and his mother was Ely Maria Ricardis Weibull. He grew up in a sugar factory and understood how productivity could be improved by the use of machines. This exposure impacted his work as he explored extensively printing and photography. Photography was a subject that enticed him in such a way that he built several cameras during his career. Interested in the arts from an early age, Richard started working on art at age ten and exhibiting his paintings during high school years, after the Linien (The Line) artists' work. Records of his work exist since early 1940s.

A talented artist: Career

Richard Winther was a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where later he became a professor. He founded Linien II exhibition group with other young artists, initially a spontaneous-abstract style of painting but with time transformed into a geometric-abstract type of movement (http://kunstonline.dk/diverse/ordbog/?id=155). Linien II style falls into the concrete art movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_art). Later on some of Richard Winther's work became intensely abstract and had some of the characteristics of the De Stijl/Konkret Art characteristics. Richard Winther had an intense Lithographic period in the 1950s. As he evolved as a painter, his work shifted focus to the human body. He was a member of Eks-Skolen founded in 1961 by one of his friends, the artist Poul Gernes. There he taught several upcoming artists, including Per Kirkeby(http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eks-skolen). While always interested in photography, he dedicated a significant part of the 60s to this technique, which he would revisit time after time the following decades including his last years.
Richard Winther's work is marked by particular themes such as Heronimous and Syndflod. Many of these themes fit the idea of recycled classicism. Between 1994 and 2007 he took the idea of recycling forward doing much of his pieces in cardboard. He took recycling to another level when taking previous artists's life and works and building further on those personalities. An example of this approach is illustrated by the pieces Winther generated on Wie and Gammel Holtegaard took selected pieces of this effort and enhibited Winther's work on Wie in 2005(http://www.holtegaard.org/side.asp?side=4&id=55&ver=uk&pic=58). Further, Richard Winther took his idea of recycling and applied it to his own work: he revisited many paintings of his as well as his photographic cameras accomplishing an "Rdo Re-do" where Rdo was his latest way of signing his art pieces.

Richard Winther received several awards for his work: Eckersberg Medal

Eckersberg Medal

The Eckersberg Medal is an annual award of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts...

 1971, Thorvaldsen Medal

Thorvaldsen Medal

The Thorvaldsen Medal is awarded annually with few exceptions to a varying number of recipients by the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and is its highest destinction within the visual arts...

 1997. and the Prince Eugen Medal

Prince Eugen Medal

The Prince Eugen Medal , is a medal conferred by the King of Sweden for "outstanding artistic achievement". The medal was established in 1945 by the then King of Sweden, Gustaf V in 1945, in connection with the eightieth birthday of his brother Prince Eugen who was a noted painter and art...

.

Richard Winther was also involved in the movie The Wake directed by Michael Kvium and Christian Lemmerz(ref http://www.wake.dk/facts2.lasso?n=2#anchor7)where he was the character St Patrick.

He was a member of the following groups: Arm og Ben, Decembristerne, Linien II and Den Frie.

There is a permanent collection of His work at the Silkeborg Kunstmuseum in Denmark, where there will be an exhibition in March 2010 on his photographic works as well as examples of the cameras he built.

In the US, The University Art Gallery at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth is one of five campuses and operating subdivisions of the University of Massachusetts . It is located in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, United States, in the center of the South Coast region, between the cities of New Bedford to the east and Fall River...

exhibited some of Richard Winther's work between November 2008 and January 2009.

The "Lys over Lolland 2010" exhibition depicted several of Richard Winther's works including paintings that have never been shown publicly until this time and almost unknown plaster based pieces. The pieces shown at this exhibition continue to emphasize the artist's continuous need to experiment and produce radical change in his field of work. The reference to this exhibition is: http://www.lysoverlolland.dk/default.asp?sideid=562