RICHARD L. LEMKE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Richard Lemke was born in 1939 in California and earned degrees in engineering from Dartmouth College and the University of California at Berkeley. During a two year teaching stint in a pre-Peace Corps program in East Africa, Richard met and married Martha (Marty) McCall from North Carolina. They have one son, David, now living and working in Portland, Oregon. Richard enjoyed a successful career in electronics beginning in California and Australia, but ending with almost twenty years in Portland, Oregon, working for Tektronix, Inc. The Lemke's saved enough to quit their day jobs at the end of 1991 to try adventuring with extensive travel. Returning to Australia in 1992, Richard discovered that he could draw and became passionate about drawing and painting. He took some workshops in drawing and watercolor and joined a local group of amateur artists in New Zealand where he had his first experience with oil paint. During a year living in England, Richard took community college classes in landscape and portrait painting. Back in Portland he enrolled in an acrylics painting class at the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts. In 1994 the Lemkes moved to Ashland, Oregon, and lived in the Rogue Valley for nine years, except for two sojourns in Florence, Italy for more art studies. The first period in Florence (six months in 1996) was spent as a full-time student at the Florence Academy of Art, drawing the human figure and drawing from sculpture casts. The second period (ten months in 1998/99) was spent as a full-time student at the Charles Cecil Studios, learning to paint portraits and the figure in a classical pre-Impressionist style. Part of the curriculum was a study of the history of art and a study of the art in Florence including its many frescoes and murals. Richard has sold still-life and landscape paintings while living in the Rogue Valley, and has done many portrait commissions since returning from the Charles Cecil Studios. Lemke is currently concentrating on portraiture and on still-life painting. His work is now showing and for sale at the Bay Avenue Gallery, 1306 Bay Avenue, Ocean Park, WA. Richard and Marty reside in Ocean Park, Washington. Richard can be reached by telephone at (360) 665-2438, by e-mail at rmlemke@lemkestudios.com, or PO Box 1038, Ocean Park, WA 98640.
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