Richard Henry Recchia (November 20, 1885 - August 17, 1983) was an American sculptor. Recchia was born in

Quincy, Massachusetts Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 101,636, making ...

, with the given name Ricardo; his father was a marble carver who had worked for

Bela Pratt Bela Lyon Pratt (December 11, 1867 – May 18, 1917) was an American sculptor from Connecticut. Life Pratt was born in Norwich, Connecticut, to Sarah (Whittlesey) and George Pratt, a Yale-educated lawyer. His maternal grandfather, Oramel Whittles ...

and

Daniel Chester French Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, best known for his 1874 sculpture '' The Minute Man'' in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monu ...

. He studied from 1904-1907 in the

School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is the art school of Tufts University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusett ...

, and served as assistant to his teacher,

, until 1917. His first major commission was a set of allegorical panels representing architecture for the exterior of the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

. In 1915, he won medals for several works exhibited at San Francisco's Panama-Pacific Exposition. Recchia was a founder of the Boston Society of Sculptors, a charter member of the

Guild of Boston Artists The Guild of Boston Artists (The Guild) was founded in 1914 by a handful of Boston artists working in the academic and realist traditions. Among the founding members were Frank Weston Benson, William McGregor Paxton and Edmund C. Tarbell, who serv ...

, and a member of the

National Sculpture Society Founded in 1893, the National Sculpture Society (NSS) was the first organization of professional sculptors formed in the United States. The purpose of the organization was to promote the welfare of American sculptors, although its founding members ...

and Rockport Art Association. He won the Elizabeth N. Watrous Gold Medal for Sculpture in 1944. During the same year, he sculpted the Inspiration and Aspiration medal for the

Society of Medalists The Society of Medalists was established in 1930 in the United States to encourage the medallic work of superior sculptors, and to make their creations available to the public. The Society of Medalists was the longest running art medal collector's ...

. He died in

Rockport, Massachusetts Rockport is a seaside town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,992 in 2020. Rockport is located approximately northeast of Boston at the tip of the Cape Ann peninsula. Rockport borders Gloucester to its west, and ...

, where he is buried under his self-sculpted tombstone at the Beech Grove Cemetery.

Selected works

* ''Relief of Robert Brown'', Brown University * ''Curtis Guild'' bas relief, Curtis Guild Memorial Entrance to the Boston Common * ''Baby and Frog'', Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina, 1923 * '' Mother Goose'', Rockport (Massachusetts) Carnegie Library, 1938 * ''Inspiration - Aspiration'', medal, 1944 * ''Young Pan Playing a Flute'', 1956

References

National Academy
article

Smithsonian Institution

CowHampshire
blog article American sculptors 1983 deaths 1885 births {{US-sculptor-stub