Richard Harold Wendorf (born 17 March 1948) is an American and British art historian, literary critic, and museum and library director.

His book on Sir Joshua Reynolds won the biennial Annibel Jenkins Biography Prize from the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

He served for four years as the associate dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern (1984–1988) and was awarded a Distinguished Teaching Prize in 1978.

With 7,000 members and collections that include 600,000 books and significant holdings of prints, photographs, paintings, statues, and manuscripts, the Athenæum is a center for scholarly research as well as a resource for students, writers, and families.

The Athenæum completed a $30-million renovation and expansion project and a matching capital campaign in 2002; in 2007 it celebrated its bicentennial with a series of exhibitions and publications, including "Boston Collects" at the Grolier Club in New York.

After retiring from the Boston Athenaeum in 2009, Wendorf was named Director of the American Museum and Gardens, arriving at Bath, England, in January 2010.

His younger brother, James, served as executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities in New York City.

He directed six Summer Seminars for College and University Teachers on relations between literature and the visual arts, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.