Richard D. White
85, Columbia
A private memorial gathering was held in Columbia for Richard White, 85, of Columbia, who passed away on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023, in Columbia after a short illness of renal failure.
He was an art conservator for most of the southern region until retiring and had seen every type of destroyed art works imaginable. He was born in Long View, Texas, in 1938 to Melvin and Agnes White, but the family relocated to Shreveport, La., where he graduated from Fair Park High School. He attended LSU and earned a BA in 1960 and an MA in art in 1962 where he studied with noted Louisiana printmaker Caroline Durieux and worked as her student assistant. He and his wife, Sherrill MacAlister, lived in the French Quarter on Royal Street where they raised their son, Eric.
He often reflected that it was a privilege to experience life in the French Quarter in the 1960s where he walked the streets with young Eric greeting neighbors when it was more of a neighborhood environment. He taught art at the University of New Orleans and assisted in creating that art department. After the marriage ended, he relocated to Cincinnati where he earned an MFA at Cincinnati Institute of the Arts. He was an abstract painter. He taught art in Cincinnati and Seattle but ended up in New York where he befriended painter Peter Dean and other notable artists and writers.
He was hired by renowned art conservator Margaret Watherston with the Whitney Museum of American Art. The focus was to restore color field paintings, modern art and historic murals. Being introduced to important but severely damaged paintings made him realize it was better for him to save the lives of paintings rather than making them. He learned the process of proper art conservation in cleaning, re-stretching canvases and “in-painting,” which was about chemistry and not about creating art. Living in New York might have changed his life and career, but the call of New Orleans brought him back where he was hired by Art Conservator Phyllis Hudson at Hudson Studios on Frenchmen Street. He worked there for several years before opening his own conservation studio at Art Eggs Studios.
In 1990, his friend Herbert Halpern introduced him to Marie LaFranca, owner of the original Delmonico’s Restaurant on St. Charles Avenue to discuss the restoration of her John McCrady painting “Steamboat, Round the Bend,” 1946. She had commissioned McCrady to paint this for the restaurant in 1945 to hang over the bar. He agreed to remove it from the wall and completely restore it, which was months of back breaking, labor intensive work. Once completed, the painting sold at auction to a family in Dallas.
According to John Bullard Director Emeritus of the New Orleans Museum of Art, “Richard could work miracles in restoring old, dirty and damaged paintings, giving them a second life. He was an outstanding art professional, who had the greatest respect for the art works he restored. He also was a great gentleman, intelligent, humorous and empathetic.”
He restored paintings for art institutions all over the southern states, including the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Historic New Orleans Collection, the Mississippi Museum of Art, Mobile Museum of Art and numerous other institutions and private collections. He was a member of the American Institute of Conservation and listed as noteworthy by Marquis Who’s Who. In Texas, he restored the prestigious King Ranch Collection, the Texas Capital Building Art Collection and the collection of the founder of Southwest Airlines.
Magdalena Morales Conservator of Cultural Objects in Mexico City recalls “He helped me very much when I first arrived in San Antonio in 1985 where he briefly lived. He was a very generous person, totally unselfish. You could always count on him. Intelligent and well educated, you could talk about anything with him. We worked together on the project to restore the mural paintings of New Orleans train station, but it was never done.”
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina forced him to leave New Orleans for Mobile, Ala., where he set up a private studio. In a 2006 interview with artist and longtime friend, Jacqueline Bishop for her “Louisiana Artist” series on WWNO NPR radio, he described the 200 plus damaged paintings from flood waters that were waiting to be restored in his studio. “I am exhausted. There have been many visits with traumatized people from Louisiana and Mississippi who have brought their damaged work to me. I am not sure I can accomplish all of these paintings.” Jacqueline stated that “at that time he was both art conservator and therapist, but he did eventually complete the work.”
In 2009 at the suggestion of longtime friends, he visited Columbia to look around. After a 3-hour tour of the town, he purchased a house and later set up a conservation studio in a building downtown on Main Street that he rented from friend and restaurateur JoAnn Clevenger before buying his own in the historic district. In Columbia, “Mr. Richard” was embraced, charmed and entertained by the warmth of the community, which became his forever home. Everything he needed was right there. Art vans from various southern museums delivered damaged paintings to his studio in Columbia. He helped establish a community art gallery downtown. He also restored the historic Wild West Rodeo poster for the Marion County Museum and Archives. After retiring in 2022, he declared his peaceful life was filled with books, films, cooking and visiting with friends.
He leaves behind his son, Eric, Gigi and great-granddaughter, Montana Edwards in Boerne, Texas; granddaughter, Adair White in Idaho; brother, Danny White (Linda) in Little Rock, Ark.; his Columbia “family of friends” and many good friends all over the world, especially Mexico and Spain.
