CHARLES WHITFIELD RICHARDS: The Artist and His Circle

CHARLES WHITFIELD RICHARDS: The Artist and His Circle by J. Michael Warner is a biography of Charles Whitfield Richards, spanning a large portion of the 20th century, touching on social change as well as the personal history of this writer, journalist, and artist who lived in several US cities, and was in Paris in the 1920’s. One learns all kinds of interesting details such as the fact that in the 1930’s, Miami was a more important divorce capital than Nevada. Rather than name-dropping, the book focuses on the different aspects of Richards’s life and career, and how the lives of other working artists intersected with his, sometimes forming long bonds, and sometimes drifting away.