Richard was born in 1848 in Burlington, Ontario where he was educated in a classical school taught by his father on the family homestead. In 1866, he went to Trinity College in Toronto.
About 1878, while serving as the 2nd Curate at St. James’ Cathedral, he studied painting with Otto Reinhard Jacobi, formerly of the Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin, Germany.
In 1879, Richard held an exhibition at the Toronto Industrial Exhibition. Some of his early works were found in a sketchbook of watercolours from 1880 and 1881. He had been painting landscapes in Niagara, Burlington, Hamilton, and Toronto.
In November 1888, the Rev. Richard Greene became the incumbent at St. James’ Anglican Church in Orillia. Here he founded the Orillia Sketch Club which held exhibitions at the Orillia Fall Fair. Members often made sketching trips in the country side on their bicycles. Franklin Carmichael took painting lessons with Richard and in 1911 moved to Toronto to study at the