Richard Wyatt, Jr.

Richard Wyatt, Jr. (born 1955) is a contemporary muralist best known for his public art in and around the city of Los Angeles. His murals can be found at the Watts Towers, the Capitol Records Building, White Memorial Hospital, the Ontario Airport, the Wilshire and Western Metro station, the Union Station East Portal, and many other locations.

Wyatt was born in Lynwood and grew up in Compton, before moving with his family to Los Angeles' Crenshaw District and graduating from Fairfax High School. He showed artistic promise from an early age, and when he was twelve, he won $200 at the first Watts Chalk-In, a sidewalk art contest sponsored by the Studio Watts Workshop. At thirteen, he participated in an art show at the Los Angeles Bahai Center, where he exhibited alongside John Outterbridge, who became a mentor and advocate. Other influential early mentors included Cecil Fergerson and Claude Booker, whom he met through his participation in the Watts Summer Festival. At the age of seventeen, Wyatt was selected to be part of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's 1972 "Panorama of Black Artists" exhibition, which garnered him widespread recognition and effectively launched his career as a member of the city's African American artistic community.

Wyatt attended the Chouinard Art Institute from 1966 to 1968 and also studied in a Tutor Art Saturday youth program at the Otis Art Institute. It was at Otis that Wyatt met and studied with Charles White, whose work was a major influence on him, and with John Riddle, who helped him improve his technique and encouraged him to address social themes in his art. Wyatt earned his B.F.A. degree from UCLA in 1978, and by then he had already established contacts in Los Angeles' vibrant mural movement.

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