Welcome to the website of American author, art critic, and curator Richard Speer.  As contributing critic for ARTFORUM, ARTnews, Art Papers, Artpulse, Visual Art Source, Art, Ltd., GLASS Quarterly, Surface Design, and Digital Photo Pro, Richard has reviewed exhibitions in New York City, San Francisco, Palm Desert, Santa Fe, Miami, Saint Petersburg, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon, where he is based. He has a special interest in Abstract Expressionism, rectilinear abstraction, Japanese art, and the work of Peter Halley. Among the dozens of monographs and catalogue essays he has authored are The Space of Effusion:  Sam Francis in Japan (Scheidegger & Spiess, 2020), Journey to the Third Dimension: Tom Cramer (Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, 2019), Eric Wert:  Still Life (Pomegranate Books, 2018), David Borgerding: Significant Forms (Callan Contemporary, 2018), Peter Halley: Boats Figures Trees Crosses 1977-78 (Karma NYC, 2017), HALLEY/MENDINI (Mary Boone Gallery, 2013), Henry Hillman: Illuminating the Fourth Dimension (Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 2008), Matt Lamb:  The Art of Success (John Wiley & Sons, 2005, revised edition 2013); and Echoes Among the Tides (Centre Picasso, 2003).  

As a curator, he has organized exhibitions such as Dorothy Goode: A Retrospective (Augen Gallery, Portland, OR, 2024), Sam Francis and Japan: Emptiness Overflowing (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2023), Living Mark (Verum Ultimum Gallery, Portland, Oregon, 2021), and Journey to the Third Dimension: Tom Cramer Drawings and Paintings 1974-2019 (Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon/Eugene, 2019).  His projects have been awarded curatorial grants by the Sam Francis Foundation and the Ford Family Foundation. From 2002 to 2015 he was visual-arts critic at Willamette Week, Portland's Pulitzer Prize-winning alternative newsweekly. Click here for curriculum vitae.

Richard's essays and cultural commentary have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Salon, Opera News, The Huffington Post, The New York Post, and The Oregonian, . He has won accolades from The Associated Press and The Society of Professional Journalists for his profiles of cultural figures such as Philip Glass, Luciano Pavarotti, Camille Paglia, and E. Fay Jones. He lectures on cultural issues and has appeared as a talk-radio guest on KRLA (Los Angeles), WJR (Detroit), KBOO (Portland), and WUCF (Orlando). Follow Richard on Instagram @richardspeercritic. To see photographs taken by Richard, click here. To email Richard, click here.