Richard F. Townsend

Richard F. Townsend is a noted expert on pre-Columbian culture and is the former curator of the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago. He has conducted extensive field research at Aztec sites, and written several books on the subject of the Ancient Americas, including The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes (1992), Ancient West Mexico: Art and Architecture of the Unknown Past (1998), Indian Art of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago (2016), and Hero, Hawk and Open Hand: Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South (2004), about the art and archaeology of early Native American civilisations.