Born in London, Richardson received his training at the Westminster School of Art and at the Academie Julian in Paris. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1908, and taught art at the Wellington Technical School, and then at the Palmerston North Technical College.

One of the last artists to paint Maori subjects as a particular subject, like landscape or flower paintings, Richardson's work is seen as a departure from the sentimentalalising tendencies of Goldie and Lindauer, or Hodgkins and Richmond. He painted neither the elderly nor young motherhood exclusively as other artists had done but instead painted across the whole range of Maori society with young boys in suits as well as kuia in traditional dress being represented.
- Lara Strongman, Curator of Fine Arts