At the ripe age of eleven, Dick Crispo had his first artwork displayed in a Carmel art gallery. From that moment on, Dick knew that he was destined for a life in the arts. Since then, Crispo has presented 76 one-man shows and won 36 awards for his artistry, including a gold medal from the Italian Academy of Works of Art. His work is part of more than 100 distinguished private and public collections, such as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Monterey Museum of Art, the Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, and Museo de Belle Arti Lugano in Switzerland.

Born in New York in· 1945, Crispo moved to Carmel with his family at the age of ten. The young artist quickly became immersed in the local artists’ colony. Crispo befriended the likes of American writer Henry Miller, and musicians Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Crispo’s art education includes the Carmel Art Institute, Monterey Peninsula College, Arizona School of Art, and Trinity College in Pennsylvania. Dick Crispo has been a member of the Carmel Art Association since 1969.

Some may say Dick Crispo is a Renaissance man, for he has held a multitude of careers focused around the arts. These careers vary widely and include: Art Historian, Lecturer, Professor, American Cultural Specialist to Latin America for the U.S. State Department and Director for the Arts in Corrections Program. Additionally, Crispo co-founded the Monterey Museum of Art’s “Museum on Wheels,” and he has completed over 70 murals across the United States.

When creating, Crispo enjoys painting artworks in a series. This method enables him to focus on a specific concept or theme over an extended period of time, and to represent the subject from different perspectives. Crispo states, “It is one of my goals to make the universal personal and the personal universal.” In order to achieve this goal, the artist provides commentary on a specific place, idea, or culture with the intention of developing an interaction between the viewer and the visual effect of his artwork. Dick Crispo uses subtle layering techniques to achieve the intriguing texture and bold color palette that are signature of his artwork. The artist will often layer different mediums-acrylic, oil, oil pastel, watercolor and gouache-all in one composition in order to create the rough pattern he desires.