Rene Ricard

Rene Ricard (July 23, 1946 – February 1, 2014) was an American poet, actor, art critic, and painter.

Albert Napoleon Ricard was born in Boston and grew up in Acushnet, Massachusetts, near New Bedford. As a teenager he ran away to Boston and assimilated into the literary scene of the city. Ricard supported himself by working as a model for art classes in the Boston area. While visiting galleries on Newbury Street in 1964, he was encouraged to see an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, where he encountered one of Andy Warhol's Flowers paintings. The work made a profound impression on him; Ricard later described the experience as a turning point that inspired him to pursue a life in art.

Before moving to New York, Ricard had become familiar with Warhol through a Life magazine feature on the artist and the Factory. Believing Warhol would be receptive to him, Ricard relocated to New York City in 1965 after taking over a friend's apartment on East 6th Street. Shortly after arriving, artist Al Hansen encouraged him to visit the Factory and provided directions. Ricard walked in unannounced and met Andy Warhol, Chuck Wein, Edie Sedgwick, and Billy Name, marking the beginning of his association with Warhol's circle. He subsequently appeared in the Warhol films Kitchen (1965), Chelsea Girls (1966), and The Andy Warhol Story (1966).

As a performer, Ricard was a founding participant in the Theater of the Ridiculous, collaborating with John Vaccaro and Charles Ludlam. He also appeared in the 1980 Eric Mitchell independent film Underground U.S.A. (1980), as well as numerous other independent art and commercial films.

In the 1980s, he wrote a series of influential essays for Artforum magazine. Having achieved stature in the art world by successfully launching the career of painter Julian Schnabel, Ricard helped bring Jean-Michel Basquiat to fame. In December 1981, he published the first major article on Basquiat and Keith Haring, entitled "The Radiant Child," in Artforum.

Ricard also contributed art essays to numerous gallery and exhibition catalogs. He was immortalized by Jean-Michel Basquiat in the drawing entitled Untitled (Axe/Rene), representing the tension that existed between the two.

Warhol called Ricard "the George Sanders of the Lower East Side, the Rex Reed of the art world." From the mid-1960s Ricard contributed writings to numerous independent poetry magazines and anthologies. In 1979, the Dia Art Foundation published Ricard's first book of poems, an eponymous volume styled on Tiffany & Co. catalog. The fact that the turquoise-covered book of poems appears in photographs taken on the beach in The Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin illustrates its ubiquity as summer reading in 1979.^{[citation needed]}

His second book of poetry, God With Revolver (Hanuman Books) was published ten years later, edited by Raymond Foye. The same year he contributed poems to Francesco Clemente: Sixteen Pastels (London: Anthony D'Offay). Ricard released two other volumes of poetry: Trusty Sarcophagus Co. (Inanout Press, 1990), which featured his poems rendered in paintings and drawings and was the basis of an exhibit at the Petersburg Gallery, New York City; and Love Poems (C U Z Editions, 1999) as a collaboration with artist Robert Hawkins who provided drawings for the book. Ricard also saw publication of single-poem works as limited edition artist books: Opera of the Worms with paintings by Judy Rifka (1984), Cecil (2004), and In Daddy's Hand with artist Rita Barros (2010).^{[citation needed]}

Beginning in the late 1980s Ricard's poems were often rendered in paintings and drawings. His work was the subject of several solo gallery exhibitions in the United States and United Kingdom, as well as being represented in many group exhibitions. In 2003, Percival Press published the full-color monograph Paintings & Drawings, illustrating a collection of visually rendered poems by Ricard. In 2004, Ricard created the album cover for Shadows Collide with People by musician John Frusciante.^{[citation needed]}

Ricard was portrayed by Michael Wincott in Julian Schnabel's biographical film, Basquiat (1996).

He lived at the famed Hotel Chelsea in New York City intermittently for 40 years.

Ricard died on February 1, 2014, of cancer at Bellevue Hospital in New York City at the age of 67.

Ricard and his work and effects were the subject of two solo posthumous exhibits at the Half Gallery in Manhattan, the latter in 2017 and a three-person show in 2025.

Before his death Ricard and the textile designer Madeline Weinrib designed five carpets together which later were realized and shown at the Emma Scully gallery.