Myra Reynolds Richards

The sculptor Myra Reynolds Richards stands in front of the bronze sculpture she made in 1918 for the Murphy Memorial Drinking Fountain in Delphi, Indiana.

Myra Reynolds Richards (31 January 1882 in Indianapolis – 1934) was an American sculptor and teacher. She studied at the Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis mainly under Mary Y. Robinson, Roda Selleck, and Otto Stark, but also with J. Ottis Adams, William Forsyth, Clifton Wheeler, Rudolf Schwarz, and George Julian Zolnay.^[1] She also studied in New York under Isidore Konti and in Paris with Charles Despiau at the Académie Scandinave.^[2]

Richards taught at the Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis.^[3]

Selected works

James Whitcomb Riley, 1918

• James Whitcomb Riley statue, Hancock County Courthouse, Greenfield, Indiana, 1918
• Murphy Memorial Drinking Fountain, at the Carroll County Courthouse, 1918
• Pan, 1923. Richards' Pan was stolen in 1970 and the current work is a replacement.
• Syrinx, 1923. Richards' Syrinx was stolen in 1959 and the current statue is a replacement.
• The Bird Boy, 1924, at the Columbus Central Middle School

Sources

1. Opitz, Glenn B., Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Apollo Books, Poughkeepsie, NY, 1988
2. "Pioneer Family", by Myra Reynolds Richards, 1924
3. Petteys, Chris, ‘’Dictionary of Women Artists’’, G K Hill & Co. publishers, 1985