Olivier Richon (born 1956) is a Swiss photographer living in London. He is a professor at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

Early life and education

Richon was born in

Lausanne , neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR-74), ...

, Switzerland. He studied at the

Polytechnic of Central London , mottoeng = The Lord is our Strength , type = Public , established = 1838: Royal Polytechnic Institution 1891: Polytechnic-Regent Street 1970: Polytechnic of Central London 1992: University of Westminster , endowment = £5.1 million ...

Academic career

He is

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

Photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

in the School of Fine Art within the

Artistic practice

Richon has made many photographs of studio still life compositions that typically include fabric drapes. Writing in ''Studio International'', artist Sophie Arkette said: "Richon approaches his compositions from a painterly direction. When he positions an object in a way that protrudes off a table, he is making reference to the way still life painters, such as

Chardin Chardin is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, (1699–1779), French painter noted for his still life works * Jean Chardin, (1643–1713), French jeweller and traveller, author of ''The Trave ...

display their understanding of perspective. Similarly, his use of draped material ... where it covers the table and its contents like a shroud, can be seen to echo the use of draped fabric within the gamut of traditional still life painting." Writing in '' Frieze,'' Sarah James described his work as, "theoretically heavyweight and invested in elaborate deconstruction, his work is also cheeky and flirts with the surreal."

Publications

* ''Real Allegories.'' Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2006. * ''The Sophist and the Photograph.'' Philosophy of Photography, volume 1, number 1, Intellect Publishers, Spring 2010, pp. 35–40.

Collections

Richon's work is held in the following permanent collection: *

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, UK: 15 works (as of October 2020)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richon, Olivier Swiss photographers Swiss contemporary artists Living people 1956 births Artists from Lausanne