Painter and collage artist Raymond Saunders was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1934. Showing an early aptitude for visual arts, he was encouraged by his high school art teacher and the director of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, Joseph Fitzpatrick (mentor to Andy Warhol, Philip Pearlstein, Mel Bochner, and others). While still in high school he took courses at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, earning both a National Scholastic Scholarship and a Barnes Foundation Fellowship. This allowed him to the study at the University of Pennsylvania (1953-'55) and formally enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1953-'57). In 1959 he entered the Carnegie Institute of Technology, where he earned his BFA in 1960, and then moved west to Oakland, California, where he earned his MFA at the California College of the Arts (then known as the California College of Arts and Crafts) in 1961.

Saunders began exhibiting while still a teenager, entering a mixed-technique portrait into a Scholastic art competition at Pittsburgh's iconic Kauffman's Department Store in 1952, at the age of eighteen. He participated in his first major exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Fine Art in Pittsburgh, and held his first solo show in New York in 1962, when the sociopolitical climate of the gallery world still favored white men. Saunders, who is African American, was then chosen for representation by pioneering New York gallerist Terry Dintenfass in 1965, at whose gallery he would exhibit through the 1980s. Saunders' style developed from figurative and representational works into an Abstract style that frequently drew comparisons to Rauschenberg and Twombly, but were set apart by their use of collaged elements and chalk-written words.

In 1967, Saunders wrote a treatise titled "Black is a Color," which argued against the conscription of the word "black" as a social concept rather than a part of the visual artist's toolkit, warning that grouping artists based on their skin color lends to the faulty "model minority" theory that does more harm than good. 

In 1964 Saunders was awarded the Rome Prize in painting from the American Academy in Rome, Italy, and the Purchase Award from the Ford Foundation. In 1976 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, followed by a National Endowment for the Arts Award in 1977 -- awarded to him again in 1984. In 1982, he was invited to curate the "Paris Connections" exhibition at the Bomani Gallery in San Francisco. He exhibited extensively, both domestically and internationally, including in Japan, China, Denmark, France, Germany, and Switzerland.

Raymond Saunders continues to live in Oakland, Callifornia. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the Crocker Art Museum, and many others. 

You can learn more about Saunders and his work on his website.

AWARDS
1989: Visual Arts Award: South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art
1984: National Endowment for the Arts Award
1977: National Endowment for the Arts Award
1976: Guggenheim Fellowship
1975: KQED Art Award, San Francisco, CA
Granger Memorial Award, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts, Philadelphia, PA
1972: Society of Four Arts Award, Palm Beach, FL
1970: Atwater Kent Award
1968: Lee Cultural Center Award, Philadelphia, PA
1964: Prix de Rome, 1964-66: Ford Foundation Purchase Award
1961: Schwabacher Frey Award, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1959: Pittsburgh Playhouse Gallery Invitational, Third Prize
1957: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania, First Prize in Oil Painting
1956: Cresson European Traveling Scholarship
Eakins Prize (Thomas Eakins)
Thoron Oil Painting Prize, First Prize
First Prize-Figure Drawing, First Prize - Oil Composition,
Pennsylvania Academy Scholarships

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Long-term representation: 
1979 - today: Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco
1966 - 1986: Terry Ditenfass Inc., New York
1986 - 2004: Galerie Resche, Paris, France
Selected singular exhibitions:
2022: Raymond Saunders: On Freedom and Trust, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, CA; Raymond Saunders, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, NY
2021: 40 Years: Paris/Oakland, Andrew Kreps Gallery & Casemore; Kirkeby, San Fransisco, CA
2010: For All of Us, Centre Cuzin, Auch, France
2009: Works on Paper, Stir Gallery, Shanghai, China
2007: All Colors: from Oakland 2 Oakland, Joyce Gordon Gallery, Oakland, CA
2004: Schneider Museum of Art, Southern Oregon University, Ashland,OR
2002: Raymond Saunders, Centre Jerome Cuzin a AUCH, France
1998: Hunter College/CUNY Fine Arts Building Gallery, New York, NY
1996: Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; Pittsburgh Center For The Arts, Pittsburgh PA; College of Southern Idaho, Twin Falls, ID; Holderbank, Zurich, Switzerland (two-person); Raymond Saunders: Works of Paper, Miami University Art Museum, Oxord, OH; American Embassy, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
1995: Raymond Saunders: Black Paintings, M.H. de Young Memorial; Museum, San Francisco, CA; De Chirico Museum, Greece
1994: G.R. N’Nambi Gallery, Birmingham, MI; Raymond Saunders: New Work, Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
1990: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
1987: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; Cava Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; University Gallery of Fine Art, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
1985: Boise Gallery of Art, Boise, ID; Thomas Babeor Gallery, La Jolla, CA
1984: Barnsdall Park, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1981: Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
1980: Triton Museum of Art, Santo Clara, CA; Baum/Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1976: University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, CA
1972-73: The Art Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Providence Museum of Art, Providence, RI; Toronto Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1971: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1969: Beaumont-May Gallery, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
1966: Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, NY