H. Richard Blackwell was born in 1921 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He earned a B.S. in philosophy from Haverford College in 1941, an A.M. in psychology from Brown University in 1942, and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1947.

Blackwell became a resident psychologist at the Polaroid Corporation in 1943. He was selected through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to head the Tiffany Foundation, a vision research project designed for military applications, from 1943 until 1945. He was awarded the Army-Navy Certificate of Appreciation in 1947 for this work. He also served as the executive secretary of the Armed Forces-National Research Council Vision Committee from 1945 until 1955. Blackwell became a faculty member at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1948 and developed the Vision Research Laboratory. In 1958, he left the University of Michigan and accepted a position at Ohio State University, Columbus. Blackwell held the titles of Director of the Institute for Research in Vision, Professor of Biophysics, Professor of Physiological Optics in Optometry, and Research Professor of Ophthalmology at Ohio State. He retired in 1983 as professor emeritus in the College of Optometry.

He was a fellow of the American Academy of Optometry, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He won the Adolph Lomb Medal of OSA in 1950, a Citation for Excellence in Medical Authorship from the Industrial Medical Association in 1957, the Certificate of Distinguished Service of Illuminating Engineering Research Institute in 1960, and was the 1972 Illuminating Engineering Society Gold Medalist. Blackwell was also a Member for Life of the United States Committee for International Commission on Illumination.

H. Richard Blackwell died in 1995.