Richard Lindstrom studied at the Art Academy in Copenhagen and Paris. He has painted coastal images of sailors and marines in impressionist style and also has worked as a writer. His work is in the National Museum in Stockholm, Gothenburg Museum of Art, Thiel Gallery and Museum of City of Stockholm, Norrkoping Museum, and the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.

He is also the inventor of the first prototype of a composting toilet, now manufacture with the name of Clivus Multrum, which reflects the name of its marketing company and which incorporates the word clivus, which is Latin for incline or slope. Lindstrom built the model in 1939 in Tyresö, Sweden when he, an art teacher who owned a property on the Baltic Sea in Stockholm, Sweden. He built a single chamber concrete tank, with sloped bottom and chimney, for disposal of kitchen and toilet waste. It functioned for several decades and was eventually patented in 1962. In 1964, the first commercial model was constructed out of fiberglass.

In the 1970s, Abby Rockefeller, in the United States, read about the idea and wanted to buy a system, but was told they were not for sale due to lack of technical support. In 1973, Rockefeller founded Clivus Multrum, Inc. in Massachusetts under license from Lindström to market its composting toilet. The brand of Clivus Multrum composting toilets is marketed globally.

Sources:
"Richard Lindstrom", Art Signature Dictionary, Web, Jul. 2016
AskART Richard Lindstrom auction sales images.