Richard Edwin Brooks was born on October 28, 1865 at Braintree, Massachussets. His father, John Brooks, a spinner by trade, was a native of England; his mother, Julia (Arnold) Brooks, was born in Scotland.
The fact that Richard Brooks grew up in the vicinity of the granite quarries of Quincy doubtless had to do with his choice of profession.
Richard Brooks is said to have begun to model and carve when a mere boy. He early obtained employment in the workshop of a terra-cotta company, and later established a business of his own, doing many kinds of commercial sculpture, but always endeavoring to improve himself. He studied for a time in Boston under T. H. Bartlett.
Brook's first important order was for a bust of Governor Russell, and the result was so satisfactory that the young sculptor was encouraged to go to Paris and devote himself to study. There his masters were Aubé and Injalbert. His first Salon subject was "Chant de la Vague, "--a graceful nude female figure presumably seated on the shore of the sea--for which he received honorable mention in 1895. Brooks lived a great part of his professional life in Paris.
In 1911, shortly after the Metropolitan Museum acquired two of his bronzes, "The Bather" and "The Song of the Wave, " he came to this country to superintend the erection of his statue of Gen. Hood in Baltimore.
At that time he planned to establish a studio in Washington, partly no doubt because his colleagues, Paul Bartlett, the son of his old master, and Frank D. Millet, the well-known mural painter, had studios there. He returned to Paris in the winter of 1911-12 to complete certain commissions. These occupied him so long that it was January 1914 before he opened his studio in Washington.
He had some years earlier executed statues of John Hanson and Charles Carroll for Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol, had lately completed statues of William H. Seward and Ex-Governor John H. McGraw for Seattle, and had received a commission for a statue of Colonel Wadsworth of colonial fame for Hartford, Connecticut.
The Wadsworth statue was executed in the studio of Robert Hinckley, portrait painter, on Massachusetts Ave. Among Brooks's other well-known works are statues of John Haynes and Roger Ludlow of Connecticut for the façade of the Connecticut State Capitol at Hartford.
In 1915 he executed for the Corcoran School of Art in Washington a bronze portrait tablet of the late E. F. Andrews, first principal of the school. This work was interrupted by the sculptor's illness and his temporary absence in Bermuda. It was unveiled on May 27, 1917, in the vestibule of the school. In an exhibition held by the Society of Washington Artists in the Corcoran Gallery of Art he showed a spirited figure of a boxer and two reclining figures purposed as architectural ornament. In a previous exhibition held under the same auspices he exhibited two frames of portrait medals.
As a portrait medalist, Brooks excelled, having caught from the French the lightness of touch and subtlety of expression which mark their work in this field. Brooks was a member of the National Sculpture Society and National Institute of Arts and Letters. He was a man of medium height, rather slight build, great refinement of feature, and alertness of expression.
He was found ill in his studio by one of his models and died suddenly after being taken to the hospital.
Richard E. Brooks's statue of Colonel Thomas Cass which now stands in the public gardens in Boston, as fine a statue of a quiet, soldierly figure as any which an American sculptor has yet produced. For this figure Brooks was honored with a gold medal at the Paris Exposition in 1900, and in 1901 at Buffalo he received a gold medal for an exhibit comprising the statue of Colonel Cass, two portrait busts, a number of medals and two interesting examples of applied art, --a curious candlestick and a necklace. Among his later awards was a silver medal for medals, Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. Another achievement was in his election to National Sculpture Society in 1897 and to American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1908.
Brooks was a member of the National Sculpture Society.
