BIOGRAPHY(under construction)

Please click on photos to enlarge.

According to his parents, françois-regis richardier completed his first "mural" painting while he was two years old.
No record of this is available today .

This early inclination for painting murals could very well be traced to Richardier's maternal cave-dwelling Ardéchois ancestors.
One can certainly find a resemblance with the skull found in the Grottes Chauvet in the Ardeche.

Did Richardier meet Vincent in the Ardeche or in Arles ? And when did they spend time in Paris together? Did they live under that bridge? Were they selling their paintings off the Quais de la Seine? Just down from the Louvre !

Pablo Picasso was one of richardier's earlier influence . Pablo was much older than richardier and this picture makes us wonder whether richardier was precaucious or whether Pablo was already behind his time.
Critiques are split on the question of who were the girls really looking at.

Did Richardier meet the Group of Seven (upper left photo: Tom Thomson, F.H. Varley, A.Y.Jackson, Arthur Lismer looking at (his?) child held by Esther Lismer, october 1914) ?
Isn't the resemblance of that child and baby Richardier (photo upper left) striking?
Also striking is the resemblance between Thomson (smoking) and young soldier Richardier (bottom photos).
Did Thomson have an affaire with Esther Lismer?
Nothing that would answer any of these questions was found in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection Archives.

But what was Richardier, known to be peace loving-anti-war-anti-gun , doing in that soldier's uniform ? And who is that young man following "el Che" Guevara and Fidel Castro? Neither Havana or the C.I.A. would confirm any such past connection.

However, this photo could be the explanation. Tired of waiting for Godot, Richardier could very well have gone searching for Trotsky. And thus Leo, rapidly recognizing that Richardier would never make a true revolutionary, could have encouraged him to further his artistic career and to seek the company of his dear friends Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo .
Now, considering what we know of Richardier's experience with mural paintings we cannot help to suspect that he might have inspired Diego Rivera.

The hispanic period; from Cuba to Mexico (where Richardier will return to teach in San Miguel de Allende in 2001) and then to Spain. We know for certain that he lived in the Mancha region of Cuenca some time in 1969 and 1970. Where did he cross path with Dali?
The undated photo shows how much influence Frida Kahlo and el Che still had over Richardier. That Dali used him as a model for his painting of Lincoln is unfounded.

Why go from Trotsky to Mother Theresa ? His daughter Chloé ( here with her father before a street mural in Prague, 1995) could very well have influenced him to give up on Trotsky's socialism for Mother Theresa's .

Paris, Montmartre, Place du Tertre, January 2005. Waiting for Utrillo?

The bronze bust to the left as displayed in Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome is known to represent Michelangelo.The one to the right was recently uncovered after renovation in an undisclosed area of the Vatican. There, archeologists now believe, Richardier would have ,like Bernini and others ,cast a bronze. When looking at the busts one cannot avoid thinking that Michelangelo and richardier (if it is indeed him) are sharing a joke, as if, perhaps, Michelangelo had guessed the true nature of Richardier's alleged bronze.

The truth...

La vérité...

More to come...