Richard Keyes

Richard D. (Dick) Keyes (October 19, 1930 – August 27, 2012) was an American painter associated with abstract expressionism, impressionist landscapes and the California Plein-Air Painting revival. Keyes was a Professor Emeritus at Long Beach City College, where he taught life drawing and painting for 30 years, between 1961 and 1991. He continued to teach, lecture and demonstrate throughout his retirement, with groups such as the Huntington Beach Art League.
Biography.
Richard Keyes was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1930. His parents, Richard and Estella, 
encouraged his interest in art early on, and enrolled him in an art school at the age of 
16. This propelled him to attend Highland Park Community College and Wayne State University in Detroit.
Keyes then served in the United States Air Force, during the Korean War. Upon his discharge from the Air Force and after returning to the United States, he attended the University of Michigan, earning his BA in Design in 1957. After marrying, he and his wife Carol moved to California, where he enrolled in the higher education program in Art at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he studied under artists David Park, Glenn Wessels and Erle Loran, and in 1958, he received his Masters in Painting. His style of painting at this time was Abstract Expressionist, and the Berkeley experience was very important to him, as he said it solidified his awareness and control of the abstract in visual art.
Within several years, Keyes' work shifted to abstracted landscapes. After a period of making 
welded steel sculptures, he returned to painting, though in a more realistic, yet impressionistic 
style. His most frequent subjects were the great rolling landscapes and seascapes typical 
of California's Central and South Coasts, but he also painted in much of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California.
After his retirement, Keyes studied with California Art Club members Ken Auster, Roger Armstrong, Jeff Horn and Mario Mirkovich. He continued to be a member of several artists groups, such as the California Plein-Air Painters Association and Laguna Beach Plein-Air Painters Association. He exhibited his work every summer at the Art-A-Fair Festival, in Laguna Beach, California, only stopping these shows due to his declining health. He died at home of complications from heart failure at the age of 81.