Richard Ramsdell
Richard Ramsdell | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1957 (age 68–69) Gloversville, New York, U.S. |
| Website | studioramsdell |
Richard Ramsdell (born 1957) is an American artist working primarily with the assemblage and re-appropriation of photographs and paintings.
Early life and education
Ramsdell was born in Gloversville, New York.[1]
Career
In 1991, Ramsdell received a Southern Arts Federation NEA fellowship for his work.[2] The following year he was an Artist in Residence at the Ecole Nationale de la Photographie in Arles, France. He received a second NEA fellowship from the Southern Arts Federation in 1995.[3]
Style
At first working in black and white, Ramsdell later created larger pieces with color photography and Photoshop.[4] In 1994, Sarasota Magazine described Ramsdell's art as "large scale, photo-based pieces from found images which address contemporary social issues"[5] and as "works of photo-collage incorporating words and symbols".[2] In 2000, Carolina Arts noted that Ramsdell "has chosen to work in a way that emphasizes the role of the computer in [his] photography, despite the fact that manipulation of images in the computer can be done in a manner that is almost undetectable".[6]
His piece "Number 11, 1996", exhibited at Featuring Florida '96, "consists of almost 400 sheets of paper, 8-by-11 inches, printed on a Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 1600 printer in color and arranged to represent a man in a business suit from the waist down, as if to say the heart and head are no longer needed in the world of computers".[7] Another piece, "1995-27", exhibited at Featuring Florida '98, is "a 20-foot-wide photo assemblage of a falling figure, an upside-down church and dental X-rays into one ink-jet print".[8]
Notable works
In 1981, Ramsdell created the image "1981-24" from a family snapshot taken in 1959 for his M.F.A. thesis project at the University of Florida. In 2009 the image was appropriated from Ramsdell's website by a yet unknown person and posted to the Thomas Ligotti website.[9] It was reposted thousands of times after acquiring a metaphysical backstory and became known as the "Cooper Family Falling Body Photo".[10] In 2015, it became a topic of discussion in the Metabunk.org forums[9] of Mick West. In May 2025, the history of the image was covered by Jeffiot in the YouTube video The Story Behind This Perfectly Normal Photo.[11]
Personal life
Ramsdell lived in Sarasota, Florida for more than 40 years.[1] He lives with his wife in Oneonta, New York as of 2025.[1]
Exhibitions
Solo
- Innuendo (Southeast Museum of Photography, 1994)[12]
- Richard Ramsdell (Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts, 1995)[13]
Group
- Perspective Perspective (Florida Center for Contemporary Art, 1988)[14]
- National Showcase Exhibition (Alternative Museum, NYC, 1992)
- Third Annual New York Digital Salon, (School of Visual Arts, NYC, 1995)
- Featuring Florida '96 (Ringling Museum of Art, 1996)[7]
- Featuring Florida '98 (Ringling Museum of Art, 1998)[8]
- USF Art Department Faculty & Alumni Exhibition (University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, 1999)[15]
- Making Pictures (Asheville Art Museum, 2000)[6]
- 2025 Regional Art Exhibition (Roberson Museum, 2025)[1]
References
- 1 2 3 4 "2025 Regional Art Exhibition". Roberson Museum. 2025-05-13. Retrieved 2025-08-14.
- 1 2 "A name-droppers' guide to the Sarasota arts crowd". Sarasota Magazine. 1994-12-01. Retrieved 2025-08-14 – via Free Online Library.
- ↑ Photography: Southern Arts Federation National Endowment for the Arts 1995 Photography Fellowships. Southern Arts Federation. 1995. p. 15.
- ↑ "Kinds of Photomontage Section 3". courses.washington.edu. Archived from the original on 2010-12-08. Retrieved 2025-12-18.
- ↑ "A registry of visual artists compiled by the Sarasota County Arts council". Sarasota Magazine. 1994-12-01. Retrieved 2025-08-14 – via Free Online Library.
- 1 2 "Asheville Art Museum in Asheville, NC, Features American Photography". carolinaarts.com. June 2000. Retrieved 2025-12-18.
- 1 2 Marger, Mary Ann (1996-06-07). "Art of the state". Tampa Bay Times. Archived from the original on 2025-08-14. Retrieved 2025-08-14.
- 1 2 Marger, Mary Ann (1998-06-12). "Art with a continental eye". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 2025-08-14.
- 1 2 "Debunked: Cooper/Copper family ghost photo". Metabunk. 2015-01-10. Retrieved 2026-08-02.
- ↑ admin (2015-10-08). "1959: The Cooper Family Ghost Photo". Anomalies: the Strange & Unexplained. Retrieved 2026-08-02.
- ↑ "Youtuber "Jeffiot" solves and documents the mystery behind the infamous "Cooper Family Falling Body" ghost photo". ResetEra. 2025-06-02. Retrieved 2026-08-02.
- ↑ Re: Photography: Three Exhibitions. Southeast Museum of Photography. 1994. p. 10.
- ↑ "Richard Ramsdell". Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts. 1995-10-24. Retrieved 2025-08-14.
- ↑ "Art Galleries". Tampa Bay Magazine. Tampa Bay Publications, Inc. October 1988.
- ↑ "USF ART DEPARTMENT FACULTY & ALUMNI EXHIBITION". University of South Florida. 1999.
External links
- Dillon, George L. (2004). "Montage/Critique: Another Way of Writing Social History". Postmodern Culture. 14 (2). ISSN 1053-1920.
- Jeffiot (2025-05-30). The Story Behind This Perfectly Normal Photo – via YouTube.
- 1957 births
- Living people
- 20th-century American artists
- 20th-century American male artists
- 21st-century American artists
- 21st-century American male artists
- American collage artists
- Artists from New York (state)
- Artists from Florida
- Assemblage artists
- People from Gloversville, New York
- People from Oneonta, New York
- People from Sarasota, Florida