Charles Whitfield Richards:
The Artist and His Circle
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ISBN 978-1-959569-27-5 | Paperback | 272 pp.
Color Insert | 6″ x 9″ | August 2025
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About the Book
Charles Whitfield Richards: The Artist and His Circle is the first book-length biography of the artist and journalist, whose career spanned Jazz Age Paris to modern New Orleans. He found himself at the center of the New Orleans art community from the 1930s to the 1990s, and illustrated Jeanne deLavigne’s memorable book, Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans.
Born in the Mississippi Delta in 1906, Richards showed early talent for writing and drawing. But a string of tragedies drove Richards to an itinerant lifestyle. This wanderlust led him to drop out of school and travel, first with a circus and then as a merchant marine. He studied art in Kansas City and Paris before his 1927 arrival in New Orleans. From then until the 1940s, he served as correspondent for newspapers throughout the South and in New York. His insightful interviews of prominent personalities, illustrated by his own hand, earned enduring fans. But job anxieties forced Richards to leave newspaper work in 1945 and turn full time to portraiture and landscape painting, while making New Orleans his hub.
Recognized as a genuine French Quarter character, Richards had a lasting influence on New Orleans art and on notable figures in the city’s culture: Noel Rockmore, Roark Bradford, Bertha Rolfe, Morris Henry Hobbs, Larry Borenstein, Enrique Alférez and others.
What People Are Saying about Charles Whitfield Richards
This edifying biography brings not only Richards to life, but also the always-evolving artistic culture of the South, as vibrant as it was fraught. . . . An incisive and enlightening snapshot of a neglected artist and his time.
— Kirkus Reviews (read the full review here)
The New Orleans we know in the 2020s would not be the same if it weren’t for the artists and lovers of the French Quarter of the 1920s-70s. J. Michael Warner’s illuminating biography of Charles Whitfield Richards is a window into a world that feels gone in many respects, but also still present in the streets and buildings of the French Quarter and in the people who cherish it.
— Daniel Hammer, Director of The Historic New Orleans Collection
Warner captivates readers with the vividly rendered adventures of artist Charles Richards and an engaging panoply of his bohemian friends, following them through 1920s Paris, New York and later, the ever-fascinating French Quarter.
— Ellis Anderson, Publisher of The French Quarter Journal and author of Under Surge, Under Siege
J. Michael Warner Biography
Images
Short Bio
J. Michael Warner grew up in New Orleans, where he learned how to write a good story and cook bread pudding. Formerly General Counsel for a San Francisco Bay Area biotech, he now crafts fiction and narrative nonfiction. Michael holds a PhD in organic chemistry from Indiana University, a JD from Saint Louis University School of Law, and a diploma in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. His biography, Charles Whitfield Richards: The Artist and His Circle, was a Finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition for Nonfiction Book.
Long Bio
J. Michael Warner grew up in New Orleans, where he learned how to write a good story and cook the best bread pudding. He attended Centenary College of Louisiana where he obtained his BS in chemistry and served as Editor-in-Chief of the student newspaper, the Conglomerate. Warner took a PhD in organic chemistry from Indiana University, after which he began a career in industrial research. His academic studies continued with a JD from Saint Louis School of Law and thereafter he began the practice of patent law. It was during these years that he pursued studies in art and art history and began biographical research of New Orleans artist and journalist Charles Whitfield Richards.
In 2019, Warner won second place in the IndieReader Discovery Awards in Fiction for his edited compilation of early works of New Orleans author Lyle Saxon, A Lyle Saxon Reader (Cultured Oak Press, 2018). Formerly General Counsel for a San Francisco Bay Area biotech, Warner left the practice of law in 2022 to pursue a writing career and to obtain a diploma in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. He currently writes narrative nonfiction for the French Quarter Journal and is working on a novel based in Prohibition-era New Orleans. His biography, Charles Whitfield Richards: The Artist and His Circle (University of Louisiana Press, 2025), was a Finalist in the Faulkner-Wisdom Competition for Nonfiction Book. He is a member of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and Biographers International Organization.
