Often compared favorably to John Singer Sargent, Riddick is a classically trained painter who loves to paint the heritage and customs of the Southwestern, Mexican, and Native American peoples. “Ron portrays Western life accurately,” says Mehl Lawson, president of the Cowboy Artists of America. “For him, painting the West is a calling.”

Riddick adds, “Subject matter may change, but the principles of good painting -- design, draftmanship, values, color temperature, and harmonic unity -- are always the same. We live in a time when some artists strive to shock and alienate. I’m trying to restore meaning to genuine art...and I hunger to think and feel as the masters did.”

The son of an art director at Prudential Insurance, it appeared for awhile that Riddick would follow in his father’s footsteps as a commercial artist. That is until he took night classes at the Los Angeles Center and College of Design during his high school years and eventually met Russian artist Sergei Bongart, who influenced his artistic direction to paint “from the heart and spirit.”

Using Arizona as a base, the reinvigorated artist journeyed through Europe. Later he won an Award of Excellence from the National Portrait Institute in Washington, D.C., and was named Artist of the Year by the United States Olympic Equestrian Team.

Riddick now shows his eclectic work at select galleries and shows, is a recent inductee into the Cowboy Artists of America and has been named an Artist of America Master Painter.

Southern Arizona

Published by
The Greenwich Workshop
since 1999

Preferred medium: oil

Early to Bed, Early to Ride

“I hope to create art that conveys the dignity and beauty of these ethnic cultures as they exist today. I feel a sense of urgency to record these moments of life and celebration before they are potentially lost or forgotten in time.”

Western