Windsor and Eton
a sketchbook by Fred Richards

Fred Richards
Newport 1878 – London 1932

Frederick Charles Richards RE, painter, etcher and art educationalist studied at Newport School of Art and, during the vacations, at the Art School in Bruges. For a short while he was an uncertified teacher which he gave up to travel in Europe and North Africa. At the age of thirty, with the first art scholarship from Newport Education Authority, he studied at the Royal College of Art specialising in etching under the tuition of Sir Frank Short RE. After receiving his Diploma he went on a tour from Honfleur to Vire in Normandy making drawings which he later worked into etchings. In 1914 he was commissioned by A & C Black to make drawings for the Windsor and Eton Sketchbooks. In August that year he was working in Florence, in September in Venice (which he called “City of my Dreams”), and he was in Rome during October. A & C Black bought the rights to reproduce all these drawings  for the Venice, Florence and Rome Sketchbooks.

Richards made prints from 1912 to 1930 which he exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. His etchings were published by Colnaghi’s. Richards made numerous drawings, watercolours and prints of towns and cities in England and Wales as well as on the Continent. He made fewer prints during the 1920s when most of his energy was taken up with public engagements, teaching and examining — lecturing.

Bibliog: W J Townsend Collins Artist-Venturer: The Life and Letters of Fred Richards, Etcher and Author R H Johns Ltd., Newport no date — probably around 1945.