Richard Lofton was born in McClellanville, a small village on the coast of South Carolina nearCharleston, where his family has lived for many generations. An early aptitude for painting wasfueled by the gift of a box of paints at age twelve. He started painting in earnest, and when he waseighteen he submitted a portrait he’d done of his mother to the professional class at the SouthCarolina State Fair, winning first prize and giving him a scholarship to the National Academy ofDesign in New York. He studied there briefly, then decided he needed to learn to paint on his own.He studied anatomy, drawing with pen and ink, and painting in oil and watercolor. He also created aseries of woodblock prints of historic houses in Charleston. He graduated from The Citadel in 1928with a B.A. in history. Lofton then went to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to visit one of his many sisters, and was invitedto become director of the city’s Municipal Art School, where met his wife Nancy Schallert. Heremained there until WWII when he took up his commission in the Army and ended up trainingtroops at Fort Ord in California. After the war, his introduction to the beauty of the Central Coast ledhim to move with his wife and young daughter to Carmel, CA. Devoting himself to painting anddrawing, he soon became fully involved in the thriving, fertile artistic community of the MontereyPeninsula as it was in the 40s, 50s and 60s. There he was welcomed and inspired by well-knownlocal painters, sculptors, poets and musicians. He became a member of the Carmel Art Associationand had many solo shows there, as well as serving on the Board. In between painting in Carmel andall the way down the coast to Big Sur, he taught private pupils in his Carmel studio. Lofton traveled extensively. He returned yearly to McClellanville to be with his family and to paint thelush beauty of the Lowlands. He spoke fluent Gullah, having grown up among Gullah people, andpainted a powerful series of portraits of the people there. He spent many Spring seasons paintingand camping in Death Valley with a photographer friend. His series of desert paintings, all done enplein air, conveys the wild intensity, harshness and quality of light and color. While camping, he did aseries of pen and ink drawings in Canyon de Chelly. He traveled to Mexico to paint, as well as thehigh Sierras, where he would paint plein air in the snow, with a thermos of coffee to keep him warm.Having been introduced to Point Lobos by photographer Edward Weston, he became entranced witha complete whale skeleton which was assembled near Whalers’ Cove. Perhaps due to his extensiveknowledge and love of anatomy, this became the subject of numerous paintings and one of hisfavorite places to paint.A skilled portraitist, Lofton accepted commissions and often traveled to paint his subjects. Perhapshis strongest series of portraits was of his fellow painters, sculptors, cartoonists, and photographersdone mostly in the late 50s and early 60s.Throughout his life, Lofton often chose mythological themes when painting in his studio. Minotaurs,satyrs, nymphs, and goddesses populated these works, sometimes as anatomical drawings,sometimes raging battle in thick, brilliant impasto, sometimes seducing, and sometimes as indistinctforms in otherworldly landscapes.Nelly Montague, a long-time friend of Lofton’s and early curator of the Carmel Art Association said ofhim in 1963, “Many of America’s gifted and solidly-trained painters give Lofton their highestcompliment, calling him a painters’ painter.” Richard Lofton died in 1966 of lung cancer. He was only 58 and in his prime as a painter.His work is in the collections of:The H.M. DeYoung Memorial Museum of ArtThe Santa Barbara MuseumThe Cleveland MuseumThe San Francisco Museum of ArtThe Columbia Museum, South CarolinaThe Staten Island Institute of Arts and LettersGibbes Art Gallery in Charleston, South CarolinaCommunity Hospital of the Monterey PeninsulaMonterey Public LibrarySolo exhibitions:The H.M DeYoung Memorial Museum of ArtThe Santa Barbara MuseumThe Lucien Labault Gallery, San FranciscoThe University of San FranciscoThe Carmel Art AssociationGalerie De Tours, Carmel