Rene Ricard

René Ricard is an American artist, poet, and journalist.

Ricard was born in 1946 in Boston and grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts. As a young teenager he ran away to Boston and assimilated into the literary scene of the city; by age eighteen he'd moved to New York and joined Andy Warhol's crowd. He appeared in the classic Warhol films Kitchen (1965) and Chelsea Girls (1966).

In December 1981 Ricard helped bring Jean-Michel Basquiat to fame by publishing the first major article on the artist. The piece appeared in Artforum magazine and was called "The Radiant Child."

Ricard published his first book of poems in 1979, a self-titled volume released by the DIA Foundation. This book is featured in a photograph from Nan Goldin's book The Ballad of Sexual Dependancy (1986). His second book of poetry, God With Revolver (Hanuman Books) was published ten years later. He has released two other volumes of poetry since then; Trusty Sarcophagus Co. (Inanout Books, 1990) and Love Poems (C U Z Editions, 1999). The second is a collaboration with artist Robert Hawkins, who provided drawings for the book.

Ricard was played by Michael Wincott in Julian Schnabel's biopic, Basquiat (1996).

Ricard is reclusive and famously mercurial. He lives and works in New York City.