B. 1923 - Richard Artschwager was born in 1923 in Washington, D.C., and spent much of his childhood in New Mexico. He served in World War II, and returned to finish his degree at Cornell University, where he received a BA in Chemistry in 1948. Artschwager approach to intaglio printmaking, Artschwager uses a variety of techniques;soft ground, hard ground, dry point, aquatint and roulette-to create the many textures and lines that define his images. Artschwager's six-object motif-table, window, mirror, door, rug, and basket-concerned his imagery for over three decades. Artschwager's sculpture often employs "fake" materials, such as Formica patterned to look like a wood surface. The artist sees such materials as images in and of themselves, or in a sense as photographs, which he appropriates for his artwork. Additionally, in his typically rational yet radical manner, Artschwager believed fundamentally in the use of the forms of everyday objects as the basis for his sculpture.

While he shared some of these tenets with his Pop contemporaries, such as Claes Oldenburg, Artschwager's cerebral approach and lack of interest in emulating the bright colors and advertising of capitalist culture in his art set him outside the borders of Pop, and aligning him more closely with, if anyone, the early 20th century surrealist, Marcel Duchamp. Artschwager has been widely recognized in exhibitions in the United States and Europe.