Collection: Richard Bosman

Richard Bosman (b. 1944)

A major figure in what has been called both new expressionism and the figurative expressionism movement; Richard Bosman’s arresting images are often enigmatic and disturbing. He utilizes a single-frame, stop-action technique derived from both film and the comic strip. Many of Bosman’s paintings and prints capture and freeze moments of fear and catastrophe. Rough, imperfect compositions and vivid textures give underlying emotional content both to his narrative and his more calm seascape subjects. Like his paintings, his prints are often drawn from popular sources such as comic books and adventure novels, and present scenes from remembered or imagined stories. The images seem familiar and allow viewers to recognize just how much they have become part of modern life. Though these works present recognizable images, they are not particularly realistic, preferring to exaggerate for emphasis and to draw attention to their fictiveness. Rather than slices of life, they are life served up as a dessert or an appetizer.

His works are in the permanent collections of, among others, the Albright-Knox Gallery, the Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), The Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Walker Art Center, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Elvehjem Museum (Madison).