Richard Kidd was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1952. He graduated from the Department of Fine Art at Newcastle University in 1974, immediately going on to become an award-winner at the John Moore’s Painting Prize, receive a scholarship to the British School in Rome, and the Harkness Fellowship to the United States.

He led an adventurous life; a dynamic combination of painting and mountaineering which he approached with equal measures of daring and expression. The often huge lyrical compositions of both his early abstract assemblages and later semi-abstract landscapes show the same economy of movement across a vertical surface sacred to rock climbing.

Kidd stayed in the States for 7 years living in San Fransisco and New York, and despite the rich art scene of the city and the granite 'big walls' of Yosemite, he returned to the UK in 1987. Soon after he settled with his new family in Warwickshire keeping a studio above the stables at Alscot Park and showing regularly at the Rowan Gallery, London. During this time he also became a successful writer and illustrator of children's books, several of which were shortlisted for national book awards.

In the early 2000s, Kidd moved back up north, tutoring Fine Art at Newcastle University. He held a studio on the quayside and later in rural Northumberland. He continued to paint and teach until his untimely death by drowning in 2008 whilst swimming at a waterfall with his partner on a trip to the Philippines.

Kidd is represented in a number of public collections such as the Arts Council of Great Britain; Contemporary Arts Society, London; Kunsthaus, Zurich; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Ulster Museum, Belfast; The Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro; Clare College, Cambridge; Northumbria University, Newcastle; Warwick University, Coventry; Museum of Modern Art, San Fransisco.

Exhibitions include the Rowan Gallery, London (regularly from 1977 until its closure in 1993);  The Redfern Gallery, London; the Alexander F. Milliken Gallery, New York; Newhouse Gallery, New York; The Turnpike Gallery, Leigh; The Red Box, Newcastle upon Tyne; The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle upon Tyne; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro; Kunsthaus, Zurich; Museum of Modern Art, San Fransisco; the Serpentine Gallery, London.