Anthea Richards was born in the Lake District. From 1958 to 1960 she was a student at the Slade School of Fine Art. Later she spent 3 years studying at West Surrey College of Art. From 1969 to 2000 she taught Visual Studies in Further and Secondary Education, and between 1969 and 1989 she was also an art examiner for the Cambridge Board. In 2000 she moved permanently to St Ives.

She says: 'My recent painting and prints have been inspired, in part, by the sea and the conditions of light in the Penwith landscape, but also by visual phrases from literature. The poem “The Four Quartets” by T.S. Eliot has philosophical ideas that are important to me, and it is also full of wonderful poetic phrases e.g. “Hints of earlier and other creation”, “Sea Howl”, “The vast waters”, which release a freedom in me to explore the visual language for new imagery. My work is built up in layers: gestural marks, combined with carefully drawn and placed shapes in the rectangle. Colour plays a dominant role in my decision making. The image is complete when the idea works in a new way and if I were to carry on working on it, it would become another idea.'