Richard Dunn was born in Sydney, Australia, and studied architecture at the University of New South Wales, sculpture at the National Art School, Sydney, and painting at the Royal College of Art, London, M.Art(RCA).

Richard Dunn lived for ten years in London and Paris, and in New York, 1984-1985, P.S.1 International Studio Program Fellow, PS1 MOMA, New York. He was Director of Sydney College of the Arts 1988-2001, and Professor of Contemporary Visual Art and University Artist-in-Residence, the University of Sydney, until the end of 2010.

Richard Dunn lived for extended periods in Düsseldorf and Edinburgh. He has been a Visiting Professor, National Academy of Fine Art, Oslo, 2000; Artist-in-Residence, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany, 2000; Guest-professor, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf winter semester 2003/4; Artist-in-Residence, Sanskriti Kendra, New Delhi, India, 2010; External Examiner for Art, Space and Nature postgraduate program, The Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Edinburgh 2009-14.

He is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Visual Art at the University of Sydney.