Expertise across the spectrum…from old masters to today’s artists
Paul Anthony Smith, Dreams Deferred #13 (2021)
Modern & Contemporary Art and Design
TAA’s relationships with leading artists, galleries and art fairs provides the opportunity to build a dynamic collection or simply acquire just a piece or two. Richard Townsend has been responsible for exhibitions on and acquired work by Bruce Goff, Zaha Hadid, Robert Indiana, Dennis Oppenheim, and Frank Lloyd Wright. He has commissioned work from Mark Dion, Robert Indiana and Karim Rashid, among others. Townsend has curated exhibitions such as Out of Oklahoma: Contemporary Artists from Ruscha to Andoe for the Oklahoma State Centennial in 2007 and the critically and popularly acclaimed exhibition A Tale of Today: Yinka Shonibare CBE for the Richard H. Driehaus Museum in 2019. He has overseen Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower; Robert Indiana 66; Dennis Oppenheim: Indoors, Outdoors; Karim Rashid; and Back to Eden: Contemporary Artists Wander the Garden as well as many other Modern and contemporary exhibitions.
Alex Arrechea, Architectural Elements 1 (2005)
Latin American Art
While at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and then later as President and CEO of the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Richard Townsend developed an extensive network of collectors, galleries and artists throughout Latin America. Responsible for projects on and working with such artists as Leandro Erlich, Guillermo Kuitca, and Gabriel de la Mora, while at MOLAA he acquired works by Alexandre Arrechea, Antonio Berni, Tania Bruguera, Los Carpinteros, Dario Escobar, Carlos Garaicoa, Esteban Lisa, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Tunga and many others. At MOLAA Townsend oversaw such exhibitions as Esteban Lisa: Playing with Lines and Colors; MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985; Mexico Expected/Unexpected: The Isabel and Agustín Coppel Collection, presented simultaneously at MOLAA and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and Siqueiros Paisajista/Siqueiros: Landscape Painter with the Museo Carillo Gil, Mexico City.
H-J Harpignies, Railway Bridge at Briares (1888)
19th-Century & Pre-19th Century Art
Published in major scholarly journals on earlier art such as The Burlington Magazine, Apollo and Master Drawings, Richard Townsend has been responsible for organizing exhibitions devoted to some of the world’s greatest artists, from Caravaggio and J.M.W. Turner to Thomas Moran. This extensive experience culminated in his organizing the unprecedented exhibition Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral (2015) for the Museum of Biblical Art, New York City. Over three decades he has acquired—among other works—paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Henri-Joseph Harpignies, George Inness, Thomas Moran, Francesco de Mura, and Bernardo Strozzi; drawings by Simone Cantarini and Benedetto Luti; and old master and 19th-century sculpture. Most recently, Townsend contributed to the first monograph published on landscape painter Alexander Keirincx (1600-1652): Der Baummaler—Die Gemälde (2018).