Cooper Hewitt says...
Richard Munsell (American, 1903-1963), who sometimes painted under the pseudonym Richard M. Chambers, was the nephew of the artist Pruett Carter. Munsell moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s, where he taught painting at the Chouinard Art Institute from 1937-1939. He spent time each year with his mother in Woodstock, New York, where he was a member of the Woodstock Artists Association.
His work was included in exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (1937), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1937), the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1940), the Art Institute of Chicago (1940 and 1942), and Associated American Artists (1941), among others.
In addition to painting, Munsell worked as a commercial artist, illustrating book covers as well as advertisements for Maxwell House and other companies. He also designed textiles, which were marketed by Associated American Artists in the 1950s. According to Art for Every Home: An Illustrated Index of Associated American Artists Prints, Ceramics, and Textile Designs (Mariana Kistler Beach Museum of Art, 2016), his textile designs were featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, the Vogue Pattern Book, and Women’s Wear Daily. His work is included in the Helen Louis Allen Textile Collection of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
