Richard Rowland Coons
1919 - 2003

Richard Rowland Coons, affectionately called Dick by family and friends, passed away at 5:46 a.m. 
on November 28, 2003 after a long and courageous fight with cancer.


Richard Coons was born in Los Angeles, Calif. on December 13, 1929, the middle son of Grace 
Manley Coons and William Rowland Coons, a hydrographer for the Los Angeles Department of Water 
and Power.

In the fall of 1947, young, strapping Coons assisted his grandfather and the family business, 
Bishop Building Materials Company, in the delivery of concrete blocks to artist and Bishop 
newcomer Robert Clunie for construction of the Clunie home and studio on Bishop Creek, which 
Coons later purchased from the Clunie family in l984, the current site of Coon's Gallery.

Aware of Dick's notable track accomplishments as reported in the local newspaper, and as an 
athlete of some note himself, Clunie struck up a conversation about sports with the younger 
Coons who worked for Chalfant Press, casting type and running the press.

Richard Coons graduated from Bishop High School in 1948.  Coons won a track scholarship to 
Santa Anita College.  Returning to Bishop, Coons married, raised three daughters and worked 
as a contractor, building many homes and most of the apartments in town.

Coons started painting when he was 47 years old, was trained in the "plein-air" tradition by 
Robert Clunie (California Art Club, 1930 - 1958), Larry Kronquist and by marine painter 
Bennett Bradbury.  Richard Coons studied at Laguna Beach Art School.  Inspired by the sea, 
the desert, but mostly by the mountains, he has lived his entire life in the Sierra, earning 
a reputation as one of the finest painters of that subject.

Coons wrote and published the definitive volume on his mentor's life: "Robert Clunie 
Plein-Air Painter of the Sierra."

Coons participated in many museum exhibitions including a recent California Art Club Show at 
the Pasadena Museum of California Art as well as exhibitions at the Gene Autry Museum of 
Western Heritage, "The Old Mill in San Marino, The Pasadena Historical Society, and a joint 
exhibition with Robert Clunie at the Ventura Historical Society.  He won many awards and 
placed in the National Park's "Art for the Parks Top 100" competition.  His work is collected 
all over the world.

The life of Richard Coons is the subject of an upcoming California State University biography 
authored by art historian Laura Turner due to be published in 2004.

Coons is survived by his wife Wynne Benti-Coons of Bishop; his daughters with first wife 
Marilyn Coons: Lee Ann Rasmuson and husband Gene, Cherie Hartshorn and husband Karl, and Jill 
Coons of Bishop; grandchildren Jacob Rasmuson, Anne and Ellyn Hartshorn, Benjamin and 
Rochelle Romo; brothers Jim and wife Carol Coons of Del Mar, Calif. and Frank and wife Helen 
Coons of Hawthorne, Nev.

Ceremony will be private.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Richard Coons Art 
Scholarship, care of Bishop Union High School.

The Inyo Register, Bishop, Inyo County, California
Tuesday, December 2, 2003 - Page A2
Transcribed by Pat Houser for Inyo County GenWeb, February 23, 2005