This group will be used to communicate updates regarding Richard C. Pionk's events. For more information regarding this group, you may view Richard's website. See link below for: http://www.richardpionk.org

Richard C. Pionk was born in Moose Lake, Minnesota in 1936 and learned the qualities of classical still life painting by spending hours in museums from Brooklyn to Paris studying the works of Chardin, Vollon, and Fantin-Latour. Richard was well known for his oils, pastels, and watercolors. He won more than 100 awards from the Pastel Society of America, Audubon Artists, Hudson Valley Art Association, Allied Artists, Knickerbocker Artists, National Arts Club, Salmagundi Club, Wall Street Art Association, American Artists Professional League, and the Ridgewood, New Jersey Art Institute.

In 1984, he was named Master Pastellist by the Pastel Society of America for Exceptional Merit and, in 1997, was inducted into the Pastel Hall of Fame. Mr. Pionk exhibited with the Pastel Society of America in Still Life Painters of the 20th Century, at the Hermitage Museum, Norfolk, Virginia; the Monmouth Gallery, New York; the Queens Museum, the Chapellier Galleries; the Oak Tree Gallery, New York; Portraits Incorporated; Lever House; Union Carbide, New York; Grand Central Art Gallery; and at the Society of Pastellists, Lille, France, among others.

He has been featured in Carol Katchen's Creative Painting in Pastel (North Light) and Dramatize Your Paintings with Tonal Value, (North Light). His latest book was Best in Pastel II (Rockport Publications). He has been represented in collections in New York, Vienna, Germany, England, France, Brazil, and throughout the United States.

In 1994, his work was included in the exhibition Contemporary Pastel Artists in Taiwan. A book by the same title was published in January 1994 in Chinese and English. In 1998, he took part in a Pastel Travel Exhibition that tour