Richard John Haas is an American muralist who is best known for architectural murals and his use of the trompe-l'œil style. Haas has a 1959 B.S. from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and a 1964 M.F.A. from the University of Minnesota.

Trompe-l'œil is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. Trompe l'œil, which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving painted objects or spaces as real. Forced perspective is a related illusion in architecture.