MONDAY 25

Iconic illustrator Robert W. Richards, best known for his larger-than-life renderings of the gay male body for 70s mags like Stallion, Honcho and Playguy, and fashion looks for design houses Yves Saint Laurent, Gaultier and Valentino, shows some of his latest pieces of pop culture in the exhibition Glamorous.

“My drawings are my little films, plays, and novels, passports into an idealized world, a place where flaws are minimized and assets maximized. As a child I lived entirely in my fantasies, spending what little money I could come by on magazines and movies, trying to visualize myself as part of the swanky milieus portrayed in the photographs and films. I drew constantly and furtively, attempting to capture my naive and rather demented visions of fashion and high society on paper. When I transfered from a strict French-speaking, wrong-side-of-the-tracks, parochial school to a much larger public high school, where I was a complete alien, it occurred to me that my skill might be of value. Maybe I could put all those years of drawing secretly, locked in my room, to distinguish myself from the pack and to achieve acceptance and, maybe, even some mild form of popularity. I volunteered for anything that involved art – prom committees, the school newspaper, yearbooks – anything. And it worked. It gave me direction and eventually an escape hatch from the dreariness of my remote Maine hometown. In my senior year I started to panic. My family couldn’t afford college and the thought of a life spent working in the local textile factory terrified me. I had to invent a way out.”

-excerpt from art book Allure-Robert W. Richards, 2006

The NP Contemporary Art Center, 131 Chrystie St bet Broome and Delancey Sts, NYC, 212-226-4552, Mon 25 & Tues 26, 6-9pm, free