Richard Hatch
Richard Hatch holds two graduate degrees in Physics from Yale University, but finds it easier apparently to violate the laws of nature than to discover them. A childhood interest in magic became a lifelong obsession after he met and was encouraged by the German magician Fredo Raxon in 1970. A full time professional "deceptionist" since 1983, Richard moved with his wife, violinist Rosemary Kimura, to Houston, Texas in 1985, shortly after winning first place in the annual New England Close Up Magic Competition in Worcester, Massachusetts. For several years he honed his craft entertaining the guests as one of the house magicians at Houston's Magic Island Nightclub before devoting himself exclusively to private and corporate work, traveling internationally on behalf of his clients.
Richard is a member of the Academy of Magical Arts, the International Brotherhood of Magicians, and is a lifetime member of the Society of American Magicians. Until recently he was also co-owner with Charlie Randall of H&R Magic Books, the world’s largest purveyors of magic books (www.magicbookshop.com).
Among magicians he is perhaps best known for his research on the identity of "S. W. Erdnase", the mysterious author of the 1902 classic, Artifice, Ruse and Subterfuge at the Card Table, and as the translator from German into English of works about Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser (1806 – 1875), Paul Potassy, and the first four volumes of Roberto Giobbi's acclaimed Card College course of card manipulation.
Richard and his wife Rosemary moved to Logan, Utah in October 2010 where they have opened the Hatch Academy of Magic and Music (www.hatchacademy.com) in the historic 1878 Thatcher-Young Mansion where they teach and perform.
(Photo by Levi Sim.)
Coauthors: Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser, Ottokar Fischer
