| Richard DuPont | |
| Birth Name: | Richard Simmons DuPont Jr. |
| Birth Date: | 5 October 1968 |
| Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Artist |
| Known For: | Multimedia Arts |
| Children: | 3 |
| Relatives: | Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (4x great-grandfather) Arthur C. Martinez (father-in-law) |
| Family: | Du Pont family |
Richard Simmons DuPont Jr. (born October 5, 1968) is a postdigital American artist whose installations, sculptures, paintings and prints examine the social implications of 21st century digital technology. He is a member of the Du Pont family.
DuPont was born October 5, 1968 in New York City, to Richard Simmons DuPont Sr., a private investor of the Du Pont family, and Emily T. Frick (née Troth).[1] [2] His mother would later marry Henry Clay Frick II and become chair of the Frick Collection.[3] [4] He is a direct descendant of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, founder of the Du Pont Company.
He received an AB degree from the Departments of Visual Art and Art and Archeology at Princeton University in 1991. He has lived in New York City since 1991.[5]
A pioneer in the field of Digital Art, Dupont began using scanners and 3D printing in 2002 to capture and replicate distorted images of his body. Dupont had his whole body scanned at a General Dynamics facility on The Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 2004. Dupont's work examines the degree to which the primacy of the human gesture has been radically altered by the onset of digital technology. He also uses his art to interrogate expressions of power and control, and to examine how anthropometry, the Victorian science of mapping the body, has morphed over the past century into biometrics.[6]
In 2005, Dupont was invited to present a solo project at Art Basel Miami in the Art Positions sector. In 2008, Dupont was commissioned by The Lever House Art Collection to present a major installation at Lever House. The installation was widely acclaimed.[7] Between 2008 and 2015, Dupont's work was exhibited at The Middlebury College Museum of Art,[8] The Flag Art Foundation,[9] The Queens Museum, The Museum of Arts and Design, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Powerhouse Museum, and The Underground Museum, Los Angeles. In 2014, Dupont was awarded the Museum of Arts and Design Visionary Award.
Dupont's works are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art,[10] The Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, The Hammer Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and the New York Public Library print collection among others.
On July 27, 1997, DuPont married Lauren Martinez (born 1970), the daughter of Arthur C. Martinez, former chair and chief executive of Sears, Roebuck & Co, of Chicago, Illinois.[11] They have two daughters and a son;
They previously lived in Manhattan before relocating to Greenwich, Connecticut.[12]