Richard Mayhew, Beloved Centenarian
He & his art made the world, especially my world, better
Richard Mayhew cast a benevolent smile my way when my husband introduced me, then his new bride, at a San Francisco gallery show in the early 1990s. Before the evening ended Mayhew had accepted a dinner invitation for the next night, and within another 24 hours I became a confirmed fan.
Reading of his death, at 100, in the New York Times, saddens me — but brings back a flood of shiny memories.
Mayhew loved to talk jazz, or art, or about his work with Romare Bearden and fellow Black artists from many disciplines in the tumultuous 1960s. Or about his heritage, which included Black and Native American ancestry. I loved hearing it all, but I loved his gorgeous paintings the most.
The Times (which twice erroneously refers to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as the “San Francisco Museum of Art,” but we try to be forgiving) quotes Mayhew in an earlier interview as saying his landscapes “internalize my emotional interpretations of desire, hope, fear and love. So instead of a landscape, it’s a mindscape.” They are stunningly lovely, colorful, mystical works you can find in many great museums.
All of which made this personal encounter rather magical in itself:
