Sharon Richardson Biography

 
         Richardson, a sixth generation Mississippian, was born in Woodville, forty miles south of Natchez. She grew up in the Deep South, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama and received her B.S. degree from the University of Georgia. 
         She began her art journey in 1973 with Alice Riley, a Jackson, Mississippi artist and  former student of Marie Hull.  
        From 1985 to 1989, Richardson co-owned with Anne Enochs Workshops Unlimited, an art organization which quarterly sponsored week-long workshops conducted by nationally known artists in the Jackson,  MS area. 
        Richardson studied plein air landscapes with Alan Flattmann, Sammy Britt, Dick Goetz, Ted Goerschner, Martin Ahrens, and Henry Hensche. She studied  portrait painting with Steve Moppert,  Albert Handell, Daniel Greene and Cedric Egelie.   
         In her travels abroad during long visits to the Prado, Louvre, LaOrangerie, Sistine Chapel, Uffizi, and the Musee D’Orsay Richardson absorbed  all she could from paintings by artists she admires. She took inspiration from standing in the gardens that French artist Claude Monet planted and painted, and from visiting the studios of Spanish master Jaquin Sorolla. 
     At home, she traveled to various museums to see  paintings by  John Singer Sargeant,  William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, California,  Connecticut, and Indiana Impressionists and in Holly Springs, Mississippi, the works of Kate Freeman Clark, a student of Chase.
       Over the years, she has traveled in the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Greece, Italy and the Yucatan, keeping sketch journals well as photographing for future work.
        In 2003 and 2004, she was nominated to the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.
        Richardson's pastel paintings have been accepted and exhibited by the Degas Pastel Society, New Orleans, winning the Pastel Society of America Award; the Kansas Pastel Society Show; the California Pastel Society Show and the International Pastel Society Show in Lille, France as well as local and regional competitions.  
        Her oil paintings have been accepted and exhibited in numerous competitions including the Salmagundi Club in New York, three times; the Batavia, New York Art Competition, winning the Dick Blick Award; The Pallet and Chisel Society Show; The Miniature Society Competition; as well as local and regional competitions.
         "The Natchez Story", a movie shown at the Visitor's Center in Natchez, includes several Richardson paintings, ending the film with her painting one of the sunken roads along the Natchez Trace.
    The Mississippi Museum of Art and The Municipal Art Gallery in Jackson, Mississippi have her work as well as  corporations, and private collectors in the United States, Canada and Europe.


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