Richard Gorman was born in Dublin in 1946. He studied at Trinity College Dublin, NCEA and Dun Laoghaire School of Art from where he graduated in Fine Art in 1980. In 1984 he moved to Paris to study lithography and etching at the Atelier Champfleur.

Gorman has exhibited widely and regularly since the mid-1980s, especially in Dublin, London, Milan and Tokyo. Frequent and extended visits to Japan have notably influenced his working methods and materials, most memorably in a series of highly successful large-scale works executed on handmade washi paper that he produced in western Japan in 1999.

Gorman has received many awards, most notably the Palette d’Or at the 1986 Festival International de Peinture, Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, the Open Award at the EV+A, Limerick in 1987 and the Pollock/Krasner Award in 1996. Gorman is a member of Aosdána and in 2005 he was elected RHA at the Royal Hibernian Academy.

In 1984 Gorman moved to Milan where he is currently based.