Bio
Richard Obenchain was born
in Brooklyn,
N.Y. in 1944. Because his father
designed and built
steel mills he spent his childhood moving among the industrial cities
of the
Northwestern states. He received a Bachelor of Architecture Degree from
the University
of Kansas in 1967.
His interest in art
sprang
back to his earliest memories. He first began painting in watercolor
and oils
in his early teens. His first formal training in art was at the
Carnegie
Institute in Pittsburgh, and although he has taken
assorted art courses,
mainly through the California
University system, he considers himself
a self-taught
painter.
After college he spent
four years in the Navy where, among other things, he served as
navigator of the
USS Kennebec, and as a U.S. advisor aboard Viet Namese
riverboats. The Navy
home ported him in the San
Francisco Bay area, where he stayed upon
completion of his military service. While living there he began a
career in
architecture, soon abandoned when he started his own business as an
architectural illustrator, which allowed him the free time to develop
his
painting skills. In 1976 he moved to Santa Cruz, Ca. where he first began to
network with other
artists and to take himself seriously as a painter.
He has held a lifelong
fascination
with the tropics which began when his grandparents moved to Naples, Fl. in 1959.
While in the Navy he visited Hawaii for the first time. He was
especially captivated
by the Big Island and
the town of Hilo. He vacationed in Hilo annually until moving there
in 1988. Richard now
lives in Bisbee, AZ., an arts community located in
the Mule
Mountains of S.E. Arizona. Richard
maintains a home with a studio and gallery on a 62 acre ranch in the
middle of the Mule Mountains.