A Celebration of Life for Richard Bennett

Community Celebration and Fundraising Art Sale
Sunday, April 12, 1:30 pm - 6:00 pm

1:30 pm: Refreshments and gathering in the SCAL lobby and outside space (weather permitting)
2:00 pm: Speeches and remembrances in the SCAL theater
3:00 pm: Fundraising art sale in the SCAL gallery 

Obituary

The artist Richard Malcolm Bennett, 96, passed away peacefully on 6 January 2026.  A longtime resident of Santa Cruz, Richard was a beloved figure in the local art scene, celebrated as a prodigious painter and sculptor.  He led a life drawing class at the Santa Cruz Art League for decades, and leaves behind a vast treasury of works.

Richard was born on 22 June 1929 in Oak Park, IL.  He led an itinerant life in the wake of the Great Depression and eventually joined the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1950, serving in the Philippines and Germany.  After his discharge, he worked as a land surveyor for various companies, crossing the United States innumerable times, painting and writing whenever he had the chance.  Even into his last decades, he would always leap at the chance to travel down some long-forgotten country highway, looking for new vistas of the American West.  His art was both the product and the inspiration for this insatiable search. 

In 1962 he married Ann Leipfert, with whom he lived until her death in 2014.  They worked together as surveyors on the road in the United States, never staying in any place for long; their record of addresses is an atlas of the country.  In the mid-1960s they worked for a firm in Palo Alto, CA, and developed a taste for Santa Cruz.  They finally settled down permanently in the Santa Cruz area in the 1970s after the birth of their first child, David, but even then they moved from house to house, from Warren St to Western Drive, and down to Soquel and eventually Watsonville.  In their retirement years, they travelled repeatedly to Southern France, retracing the routes of their youth, with Richard always finding new landscapes to paint.  Throughout his life he was devoted to classical music, performing in choral groups and playing the classical guitar; in between paintings he would write, composing stories and plays.  

Richard is remembered by all who met him as an immensely resourceful, patient, and kind man.  His compassion is reflected in his devotion to his sons and wife throughout his life, and in his uncanny ability to depict the spirit of the American landscape in his work.  His figures, in watercolour, oil, and pencil, and a rich selection of his landscapes will be on display at a memorial event at the Santa Cruz Art League on 12 April 2026.  All are welcome to attend; the work will be for sale, with all proceeds going to the Art League to support the cultivation and celebration of local artists.  

Richard is survived by his sons, David and John.