RICHARD W DEMPSEY (American, 1909-1987). Music Festival, Oil on canvas. Signed "Dempsey, Haiti" lower right hand corner. Framed. - 18.5" x 25"; Frame: 27" x 33.5" Estimate $500-700
: Dempsey was a painter known primarily for his abstract works and his portraits of prominent African American individuals including Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Thurgood Marshall, and Adam Clayton Powell. He was born in Ogden, Utah, but spent the majority of his youth in Oakland, California. He studied art at Sacramento Junior College, the California School of Arts and Crafts, and the Student Arts Center. Dempsey had four exhibitions in California before moving to Washington, D.C. to begin work as an engineering draftsman with the Federal Power Commission in 1941. He traveled extensively throughout his career. Dempsey traveled to Haiti and Jamaica in the 1950s and '60s. In 1951, he became associated with the Washington, DC school with his inclusion in the first Annual Exhibition of the Loïs Mailou Jones & Céline Tabary Studio Group.
