Richard Yarde worked in the most unforgiving medium – watercolor. He has stated that “The watercolor either succeeds or it doesn’t, just like surgery.” He received his undergraduate degree in fine arts with honors and his master of fine arts degree from Boston University. Equally inspired by historical Black photographers, European post-Impressionists and by a keen political purpose, Yarde drew acclaim early in his career for his masterful portraits of Black leaders—athletes, swing-era dancers, blues and jazz musicians—as well as individuals he knew growing up in the multicultural Boston neighborhood of Roxbury. The success of these early works led Yarde to create an ambitious three-dimensional installation that revived the memory of New York’s famous Savoy Ballroom. It was presented at the BMA in 1983 and later hailed by The New York Times as “the most spectacular installation of the year” when it opened at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He was known for his explorations of the African-American tradition, and his use of grid patterns, which he attributed to being influenced by his seamstress mother’s quilts.