Our Creative Legacy: Painters and Illustrators

• Rasjad Hopkins
• Priscilla Maynard
• Joseph Bob Paige
• Peter Mark Richman

Rasjad Hopkins

August 6, 1934 – November 4, 2023

Born on August 6^th, 1934, in Chicago, Illinois, Rasjad spent his spent his formative years in Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco. His multifaceted life embraced roles as an Artist —both sculptor and painter—Publisher, Author, Gallery Director, and former Owner of influential art galleries in the United States, father, and Subud helper.

After serving in the army in Europe I began my career as an artist in Seattle in the early 60’s. After winning an award for a watercolor in the state fair I was motivated to study fine art seriously at the University of Washington and a few years later graduated with two degrees, first a BA in Fine Art and then an MFA.

 I was fortunate to find success early while still a student. My sculpture, “Mt. Rainier” was selected by I.M. Pei to be exhibited in his Science building for the World’s Fair where it was subsequently purchased by the Seattle Art Museum. It is currently on loan to the Pacific Science Center where it is being exhibited.

 Those were exciting years and I continued to exhibit my paintings and sculpture in a number of galleries in the Pacific Northwest. After graduation I worked part time as a cook and taught children’s art while supporting my then wife’s university studies. After she graduated with an MFA in ceramics we decided to try living in San Francisco where we might better pursue our careers as artists.

 In San Francisco we found a place to live on Potrero Hill suitable for both our work in art. I got some sculpture commissions and began exhibiting in the Vorpal gallery, but with a wife soon to give birth to a little girl there was not quite enough money and a part time job in an art gallery led to a new and unexpected career. I did manage to find some time to do my own artwork, but now these many years later after starting a lithographic workshop and owning or partnering in more than eleven galleries in seven cities, here I am, finally able to spend full time, painting, sculpting, writing, and traveling.

 I hope that in my work I have been able to capture some of the essence of what I have seen and felt and to share in the joy of discovery of beautiful and interesting places. I want to project in my work a sense of the respect and gratitude I feel for what we have been given in this world.

– Rasjad Hopkins

Peter Mark Richman

April 16, 1927 – January 14, 2021

PETER MARK RICHMAN began his art training as a young boy, studying for seven years at the famous Philadelphia Graphic Sketch Club. He has exhibited widely and is represented in hundreds of collections, including the permanent collection of the Crocker Museum in Sacramento and The University of the State of New York.

I started drawing and painting when I was very young. I went to the Philadelphia Graphic Sketch Club, a fine philanthropic art institution from the age of nine to about seventeen. The emphasis was academic so I had a good background in drawing. It didn’t dawn on me until much later, I mean, by that time I was already a serious actor, married and father of several children before I realized I was really an expressionist. The last thirty years or so I have painted with much more of an inner direction. I mean by that, that an artist has something in him that has to be expressed and the way it expresses itself on canvas or paper is relative to the individual’s inner life. I believe in a spiritual sense the artist has very little choice in the matter. No matter what he does, what comes out is really him in certain periods of his life and it is constantly changing. Acting has never been enough for me. I mean, just to act is terribly limiting, so in the time I have in between acting jobs I paint and write. This combination seems to complement each effort and keep things directed towards a release of whatever has to be released. That’s the fascinating part of this whole business. As an actor you never know what is going to happen tomorrow, and it’s the same in painting. The difference is at least as a painter you are your own boss and don’t have to talk to a director or a producer about what tube of paint to use.

I have been called an expressionist. Whatever I’m called, I am an instinctive, intuitive, emotional painter with a particular temperament that corresponds to my inner nature. I am the same as an actor and, I suppose as a person. I basically paint the same way I did when I was ten years old except that it is more varied and my technique is more sophisticated.

I am not an intellectual painter. When I lose all thought and work subconsciously and freely, not knowing how I accomplish certain effects or variations in color, then I feel I am most in touch with my inner life. When that happens, hours go by and their passing is unfelt because I am so completely submerged in my work. To me these times are the most creative and fulfilling.

When I paint, getting started and then knowing when to stop is a big problem. I conclude work on a painting when I am satisfied, when it pleases me, and when I feel that I have accomplished best what I can do. There are some paintings that never seem to be finished.

– Peter Mark Richman