Rago Auctions

Richard Sheehan’s paintings have been described as possessing a “painterly realism” and are often compared to the works of Bay Area artists such as Richard Diebenkorn, James Weeks, and Wayne Thiebaud. Sheehan painted en plein air and focused on capturing the specific temporal and geographic impressions of a place. His work depicts abstracted segments of urban sprawl: bridges, tunnels, overpasses and other remnants of industrialization. Instead of creating sweeing panoramic vistas out of these landscapes, he cropped the image, creating tight and dynamic compositions. The paintings are highly architectural in form, isolated, and specific to the American landscape.

Sheehan was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1953, where he lived and worked for most of his life. He received his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art in 1975, and his MFA from Yale University in 1977. He has shown widely across the United States. He also taught at Yale University, Harvard University, and Brandeis University. He died in Boston in 2006.