Richard Larter was born in Great Britain, studied art at St Martin’s School of Art, London (1945) and Toynbee Hall (1952-53) in London before training as a teacher in Surrey (1954-57).
Read MoreBy the early 1960s the artist was experimenting with painting processes, using hypodermic syringes to apply paint to canvases. In 1962 his work was exhibited in the Paris Salon and that same year he immigrated to Australia with his family. Teaching in Sydney, Larter developed works that appropriated the imagery of popular culture, fashion, media, pornography and advertising and in 1972 he resigned from teaching to work fulltime as an artist.
Larter’s work shares much in common with American Pop Art in its ironic commentary on popular culture, although it is more explicit and political in its imagery. He was one of the few Australian artists whose appropriations were unique enough to rival the works of his contemporaries in America.
Larter held over 50 solo exhibitions and his work is represented in the collections of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.
