User:Artistdog

Born in Colorado, Richard Case studied at Chouinard Institute of art in California and worked for two years at the Walt Disney Studios as an illustrator in the Title Department from February 24th, 1938, to June 1st, 1940. He illustrated the cover page for the "Ugly Duckling" 1939 version, (it is not known at this time if he illustrated other plates in the book) as well as title pages for many other cartoons. He was also an illustrator for McDonald Douglas and a freelance illustrator for many books. His last forty years were spent creating large abstract paintings on canvas which have been exhibited in galleries in Laguna Beach, Palos Verdes, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago and New York. As related in an excerpt from the book, "Richard Case, Ultimate Passage", by John King and Regina Case, 6/21/2009. "One of Richard Case's first jobs was as an illustrator for Walt Disney Studios. He drove a "hot" yellow car and made some good money.  He said that back then Walt would occasionally hang out with them outside during a lunch break and share some laughs. World War two came along and Richard found himself at the front of a landing craft about to hit the beach for battle.  He was the top ranking officer and positioned himself at the front of the ramp as it crashed forward into the surf.  Expecting to be thrown into a raging battle, everyone aboard including Richard was relieved to find their Commanding Officer standing in front of them on the beach with a smirk on his face.  A few miles to the north and south the gunfire was nonstop but where they sat was a two mile radius of calm. They all unloaded and shared a "quiet" lunch against the dunes.  When Richard returned home he worked for a time as a freelance story illustrator before deciding to work as an illustrator for McDonnell Douglas, making lifelike sketches of airplanes and thunderous rockets blasting off into space. He had a good time working there with the other illustrators in an old part of the building where they dressed casually and had the place to themselves. On any given day a half dozen fancy flies could be seen buzzing around with long paper streamers glued to their backsides. This ended as all good things usually do when the illustrators were transferred to another wing where they had to shape up and were made to wear suits and ties. Richard was living as good a life as anyone could, with his young wife Mary and two children Randy and Regina until Mary died suddenly from a brain tumor which had been mis-diagnosed as "hallucinations." The hardship of unfairly losing the love of his life and raising two children on his own took their toll on Richard. Richard found some relief at 55 when he inherited a little money. This enabled him to quit work and focus on his other true love, abstract painting. This consumed him daily. I don't remember a day from when I first met Richard until his last days that he would not be found applying paint to canvas, rising at 4am to begin and stopping only around 3pm to have a glass or two of red wine before reclining in his chair to devour a good book. Richard's paintings are always loaded with emotion. They depict stories from the bible, rages against the anguish of losing his wife and flashbacks from an inhuman war. Richard never backed down from his convictions whether he was applying them to canvas or working them out during a conversation. While painting, he never wavered; his abstractions were true expressions from the depths of his soul, the finished canvases stopping you dead in your tracks with their raw brush strokes, underlying emotion and vivid intensity. And if you wanted to argue with him later...Richard was always glad to set you straight."