Exhibitions
Richard Bolingbroke Retrospective
San Francisco City Hall
Opens October 16th, 2025 • 4pm - 6pm
"Retrospective" is a look back on the life work of the late Richard Bolingbroke. The show is curated by his partner, Steve Gaynes, and is on display through the end of the year in the office of Rafael Menderman, the president of the Board of Supervisors.
About the Artist
Obituary
The artist Richard Bolingbroke died on December 28, 2024. He was 72.
Richard Bolingbroke, born in Dorset, England in 1952, led an extraordinarily colorful life, which took him from activism as a just-out gay man in London’s Gay Liberation Front to ashrams in India and Oregon, where he found his spiritual path.
Although he studied art as a young man, taking a pre-diploma art course at Winchester Art College (now part of the University of Southampton) in 1969, he went on to study geography at London University in 1970. He graduated with a B.Sc. in Geography in 1973, having continued to paint in an unused laboratory on campus. It was not until 1989, after his diagnosis with HIV, that he began to pursue art as a career.
As treatments for the disease improved, he continued working, producing an enormous body of work, utilizing a wide variety of media and techniques. Art gave him a place to explore not only his creative skills but also a way to navigate life.
“I continue down that path,” he once wrote in an artist’s statement, “bringing in collage alongside the drawing, eager to see where this will lead.”
Richard’s work evolved over time and while much of it focused on still life, a genre he mastered with his tight, meticulous control of watercolor, he found expression in numerous other techniques, as well, including printmaking, pastels, chalk, and laser engraving.
Arguably, his watercolors found their finest expression in his series “Rituals and Meditations,” a long series of enigmatic, mandala-like pieces utilizing both natural and man-made objects ranging from black locust thorns and flowers, to kimono fabric and skeletal pieces, including a human skull. These paintings, tightly constructed and detailed, juxtaposing the living with both the dead and the inanimate, draw the viewer into the mysteries of life and death, hinting at deeper meanings through beautiful but otherwise mundane objects.
“Standing before the watercolor, the viewer may realize that this is a shrine to life itself, both abundant and fragile,” observed artist John Mendelsohn in an essay about Richard’s work. ”Contemplating the image of dry, brown leaves and the oversized thorns of a locust tree encircling the plate with four irises, we recognize that this is a vision of suffering and blooming freshness, seen in their reciprocal wholeness.”
Richard’s work would vary dramatically over time. Feeling he’d said everything he wanted to say with “Rituals and Meditations” he moved on to different forms and different subjects, a development which disappointed some of his collectors and admirers, but which also drew new enthusiasts, giving Richard the opportunity to explore new themes and different media.
In the last few years of his life, Richard contemplated closing his studio at Hunters Point Shipyard. He thought he might be done with his art, but he was never able to abandon it. Creativity was as vital to his life as food or sleep or sex. He continued his work, continually challenged by where he might go next.
Henry Matisse – whose work Richard admired profoundly – famously said “Creativity takes courage.”
Brash, passionate, and loving, Richard found his strength in his creativity.
Biography
Resumé
Contact
RICHARD BOLINGBROKE
Fine Art • San Francisco
Please direct inquires to Steve Gaynes at 415-640-8906.