Born in Readfield, Maine, Theodore Jerome Richardson grew up in Red Wing, Minnesota. Following high school, he studied at Boston Normal Art School before returning to Minnesota where he instructed in art, penmanship, and geometry at Minnesota State Normal College in Winona.

In 1880, Richardson was hired by the Minneapolis Public Schools as superintendent of industrial drawing. A founding father and charter member of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts in 1883, he had his first retrospective posthumously, in 1928. Richardson is most noted for his Alaskan paintings, which he painted during the summers starting in 1884.