Rene Ricard
Ricard in 2009
Born	Albert Napoleon Ricard (1946-07-23)July 23, 1946 Boston, United States
Died	February 1, 2014(2014-02-01) (aged 67) New York City, United States
Occupation	Poet actor art critic painter

Rene Ricard (July 23, 1946 – February 1, 2014) was an American poet, actor, art critic, and painter.^[1][2]

Albert Napoleon Ricard was born inBoston and grew up inAcushnet, Massachusetts, nearNew Bedford. As a young teenager he ran away to Boston and assimilated into the literary scene of the city. By age eighteen, he had moved to New York City, where he became a protégé ofAndy Warhol. He appeared in the Warhol filmsKitchen (1965),Chelsea Girls (1966), andThe Andy Warhol Story (1966).^[3][4]

As a performer, Ricard was a founding participant in the Theater of the Ridiculous collaborating withJohn Vaccaro andCharles Ludlam. He also appeared in the 1980Eric Mitchell independent filmUnderground U.S.A. (1980), as well as numerous other independent art and commercial films.^[3]

In the 1980s, he wrote a series of influential essays forArtforum magazine.^[5] Having achieved stature in the art world by successfully launching the career of painterJulian Schnabel,^[6] Ricard helped bringJean-Michel Basquiat to fame.^[7] In December 1981, he published the first major article on Basquiat, entitled "The Radiant Child," inArtforum.^[8]

Ricard also contributed art essays to numerous gallery and exhibition catalogs. He was immortalized byJean-Michel Basquiat in the drawing entitledUntitled (Axe/Rene),^[9] representing the tension that existed between the two.

Warhol called Ricard "theGeorge Sanders of the Lower East Side, theRex Reed of the art world."^[10] From the mid-1960s Ricard contributed writings to numerous independent poetry magazines and anthologies. In 1979, theDia Art Foundation published Ricard's first book of poems, an eponymous volume styled on Tiffany & Co. catalog. The fact that the turquoise-covered book of poems appears in photographs taken on the beach inThe Ballad of Sexual Dependency byNan Goldin illustrates its ubiquity as summer reading in 1979.^{[citation needed]}

His second book of poetry,God With Revolver (Hanuman Books) was published ten years later, edited by Raymond Foye. The same year he contributed poems toFrancesco Clemente: Sixteen Pastels (London: Anthony D'Offay). Ricard released two other volumes of poetry:Trusty Sarcophagus Co. (Inanout Press, 1990), which featured his poems rendered in paintings and drawings and was the basis of an exhibit at the Petersburg Gallery, New York City; andLove Poems (C U Z Editions, 1999) as a collaboration with artistRobert Hawkins who provided drawings for the book. Ricard also saw publication of single-poem works as limited edition artist books:Opera of the Worms with paintings byJudith Rifka (1984),Cecil (2004), andIn Daddy's Hand with artistRita Barros (2010).^{[citation needed]}

Beginning in the late 1980s Ricard's poems were often rendered in paintings and drawings. His work was the subject of several solo gallery exhibitions in the United States and United Kingdom, as well as being represented in many group exhibitions. In 2003, Percival Press published the full-color monographPaintings & Drawings, illustrating a collection of visually rendered poems by Ricard. In 2004, Ricard created the album cover forShadows Collide with People by musicianJohn Frusciante.^{[citation needed]}

Ricard was portrayed byMichael Wincott inJulian Schnabel's biographical film,Basquiat (1996). He lived at the famedHotel Chelsea in New York City intermittently for 40 years.^[11][12]

Ricard died on February 1, 2014, of cancer atBellevue Hospital in New York City at the age of 67.^[2]

• Rocco Castoro (May 31, 2009)."Hello Rene Ricard".Vice Magazine.
• Rene Ricard atIMDb
• "After The Fall", Michele Civetta, NYU TSOA
• "Rest in Peace, Rene Ricard (1946–2014)". Poetry Foundation. Archived fromthe original on February 21, 2014.
• Weber, Bruce (February 7, 2014)."Rene Ricard Arbiter with Wildean Wit Dies at 67".New York Times.

• 1946 births
• American male actors
• American male poets
• American gay writers
• American LGBTQ poets
• LGBTQ people from Massachusetts
• 2014 deaths
• People from Acushnet, Massachusetts
• Poets from Boston
• Poets from New York City
• 20th-century American poets
• 20th-century American male writers
• Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
• Gay poets

• CS1 errors: requires URL
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from February 2014
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from December 2022