Richard Speer

Richard Speer is an American author and journalist.

Biography

Speer was born in Tampa, Florida and lived in the southeastern United States before moving to the Federal Republic of Germany with family as a teenager. It was in Europe that he was exposed to the visual arts, architecture, classical music, opera, and the culinary arts, laying the groundwork for his eventual career in arts criticism and cultural commentary. Speer returned to the United States to attend college, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Central Florida (Orlando) with a major in Journalism and a minor in Humanities. He worked as a news writer, editor, and producer for WESH-TV (Orlando) before moving on to reporter and anchor duties at network affiliates including WHLT-TV (Hattiesburg, Mississippi), WJTV (Jackson, Mississippi), and KFSM-TV (Fort Smith/Fayetteville, Arkansas). In 2000, Speer transitioned to print journalism and literature. His work has appeared in "Newsweek", "Salon", "Opera News", "Art, Ltd.", "ARTnews", and "The Los Angeles Times".

Speer now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is Visual Arts Critic and Arts & Culture Writer for "Willamette Week", an alternative weekly newspaper that won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2005. Speer also functions as editor for the blog of artist Matt Lamb.

Speer's first book was published in 2005 by John Wiley & Sons. "Matt Lamb: The Art of Success" is a biography of American painter Matt Lamb.

References

*ARTnews (Summer 2005) "Art Talk: Lamb's Chops"
*Chicago Sun-Times (October 2, 2005) "Sunday Lunch with Matt Lamb" By Debra Pickett
*Speer, R. (2005) "Matt Lamb: The Art of Success", Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. ISBN 0-471711-54-3

External links

* [http://www.richardspeer.com/ Speer's personal site]
* [http://www.wweek.com/author/?author=RICHARD%20SPEER Dynamic listing of Speer's articles for "Willamette Week"]
* [http://www.mattlamb.org/blog/ Blog of artist Matt Lamb, edited by Speer]