Charles Whitfield Richards: The Artist and His Circle

Charles Whitfield Richards: The Artist and His Circle is the first book-length biography of the artist and journalist, whose career spanned Jazz Age Paris to modern New Orleans. He found himself at the center of the New Orleans art community from the 1930s to the 1990s, and illustrated Jeanne deLavigne’s memorable book, Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans.

Born in the Mississippi Delta in 1906, Richards showed early talent for writing and drawing. But a string of tragedies drove Richards to an itinerant lifestyle. This wanderlust led him to drop out of school and travel, first with a circus and then as a merchant marine. He studied art in Kansas City and Paris before his 1927 arrival in New Orleans. From then until the 1940s, he served as correspondent for newspapers throughout the South and in New York. His insightful interviews of prominent personalities, illustrated by his own hand, earned enduring fans. But job anxieties forced Richards to leave newspaper work in 1945 and turn full time to portraiture and landscape painting, while making New Orleans his hub.

Recognized as a genuine French Quarter character, Richards had a lasting influence on New Orleans art and on notable figures in the city’s culture: Noel Rockmore, Roark Bradford, Bertha Rolfe, Morris Henry Hobbs, Larry Borenstein, Enrique Alferez and others.