Richard William Dempsey balanced a career as a painter as well as an illustrator with the Federal Government with teaching at the Corcoran School of Art. Despite the fact that his usual style skewed abstract, one of Dempsey's greatest public projects was the creation of one hundred portraits of notable Black historical figures.
Dempsey was born in Ogden, Utah, but while still a child he moved to Oakland, California. He attended Sacramento Junior College (now Sacramento City College) between 1929 and 1933, followed by two years at the California School of Arts and Crafts (now California College of Arts and Crafts), a private school located in Oakland at the time he was a student. Between 1935 and 1940 Dempsey was associated with the Students Art Center, which was possibly a community art center connected to the Federal Art Project. At some point he studied sculpture with Sargent Johnson, a Black artist living and working in California who was known for his Modernist sculptures. By 1941 Dempsey had moved to Washington, DC, where he was first employed as an engineering draftsman with the Federal Power Commission. Subsequently, he switched to the General Services Administration as an illustrator, and at his retirement had completed thirty years as a federal employee.
In 1946 Dempsey was awarded a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship as part of an initiative to foster creativity among Southern as well as Black artists. Other recipients during this period were: Augusta Savage, Charles Alston, Richmond Barthé, Selma Burke, Haywood Rivers, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, Charles Sebree, and Elizabeth Catlett. Dempsey’s grant of fifteen hundred dollars funded a series portraying iconic Black community members such as Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Thurgood Marshall, Joe Louis, Adam Clayton Powell, and fellow artist Lawrence.
In Washington, Dempsey took classes at Howard University where he studied lithography with James Lesesne Wells. In 1951 he exhibited at the Barnet Aden Gallery, the first successful Black-owned art gallery in the country; Alma Thomas served as the gallery’s vice president from the time of its founding. Dempsey taught at the Corcoran School of Art in the late 1960s as well as at Glen Echo Park, an arts and cultural center located in a Maryland suburb. Dempsey made extensive trips to North Carolina, Mexico, Jamaica, and Haiti, often abstracting the scenery he encountered with vivid color and agitated brushstrokes.