Meet
Jesse Richardson
Jesse Richardson Jr.
AKA (Jr.)
Imagine a young black man landing in Europe around the late 1960s, with nothing to look back on. Only forward to dreams of an uncertain future and hopes of a better life. He continued his studies at Belles Artes in Barcelona and traveled the Iberian Peninsula extensively.
But Jr. was a man of resilience, he picked up the pieces, only to settled on the Island of Ibiza, were he became a successful resident artist for over 30 years. He rebuilt his life career and even managed to redevelop an elaborate studio, but this time on the second highest mountain on the Island, where no one could destroy his dreams again.
His works were exhibited globally, throughout Germany, France, New York, South Africa, Los Angeles, Chicago and Japan. In his early career, Jesse was one of a few rare African American artist that sculpted bronze in the world. He practices a special technique to cast bronze used by the Ancients in West Africa called the (Lost Wax) founded 2000 years before Christ.
He managed to create the very first endorsed bronze sculptures named “Homage to Muhammad Ali “of the great late Muhammad Ali circa 1979. Amongst many other works, he also created a beautiful bronze bust of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable, the founder of Chicago.
The Artist
Jesse Richardson Jr. AKA (Jr.) was an African American born in racially segregated Mississippi during the early 1900s. He only knew poverty because someone told him that “he was poor”. As a child, because his parents could not afford toys, Jr. would take wires from an old fence and make little wired figurines of men, animals and cars for a pastime. Because of racial injustice in the South, the family latter moved North to the big city of Chicago, where they settled on the South Side. Bronzeville, a migrant center for African-American culture and business. The neighborhood was surprisingly small, but at its peak more than 300,000 lived in the narrow, seven-mile strip.
He attended Drake grammar school located on what was formally known as South Park, now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. and later graduating from Wendell Philips High School. In 1956 he joined the U.S. military and was closely followed by candidature for the 56’ U.S. Olympic Games. After the military he then settled in Los Angeles were he began to study with the famous sculpture, Robert Gilmore. From 1961 Jr. moved back to Chicago to study techniques of drawings and watercolor, later becoming a pupil of Sr. Walter Ball. Making his first exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago by wining the Purchases Award.
Now coming into his own, he then developed a thriving art studio on the South Side of Chicago in Hyde Park. But tragedy struck, in the mist of the brutal killing of Dr. King, again, America was in deep racial divide! Sadly his newfound dreams and career were crushed when his studio was trashed and burned during the riots. Loosing hope in America, he packed his only possessions, which were a bag filled with only one set of clothing and a paintbrush. He boarded a ship in New York, crossed the Atlantic headed to Europe to never look back again.
Imagine a young black man landing in Europe around the late 1960s, with nothing to look back on. Only forward to dreams of an uncertain future and hopes of a better life. He continued his studies at Belles Artes in Barcelona and traveled the Iberian Peninsula extensively.
But Jr. was a man of resilience, he picked up the pieces, only to settled on the Island of Ibiza, were he became a successful resident artist for over 30 years. He rebuilt his life career and even managed to redevelop an elaborate studio, but this time on the second highest mountain on the Island, where no one could destroy his dreams again.
His works were exhibited globally, throughout Germany, France, New York, South Africa, Los Angeles, Chicago and Japan. In his early career, Jesse was one of a few rare African American artist that sculpted bronze in the world. He practices a special technique to cast bronze used by the Ancients in West Africa called the (Lost Wax) founded 2000 years before Christ.
He managed to create the very first endorsed bronze sculptures named “Homage to Muhammad Ali “of the great late Muhammad Ali circa 1979. Amongst many other works, he also created a beautiful bronze bust of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable, the founder of Chicago.
In 2014 Jesse Richardson Jr. came back to Chicago to be with his family before he made his
final transition to Yazoo, Mississippi were he was laid to rest with his fathers