Faithful to Two Worlds

He’s an artist on his way to his second war, and he wants to make one thing perfectly clear: He is not a Marine who paints, but a painter who fights.

A series of Lt. Col. David Richardson’s bold canvases, with their bright colors and geometric themes inspired by Homer’s “Iliad,” is on view in “Trojan War Years” at the Ralls Collection, a gallery in the Georgetown neighborhood here. The show, through Jan. 29, demonstrates his abstract style, emphasis on color and design, and the considerable influence of his tours of duty in Asia.

But for the last several months Colonel Richardson, 45, has been studying Pashto in preparation for his February deployment to Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, where he will work with Afghan security forces.

Read this fascinating Michael Gordon article in The New York Times here.