Margaret Kerr Richenburg, an artist known for her intricate brickwork installations, died on Sept. 24 in Dover, N.H., at the age of 93.
She had lived in Springs for 37 years with her husband, Robert Richenburg, an Abstract Expressionist painter. A skilled gardener as well as an artist, she created an array of what she called “brick rugs” at their property on Accabonac Harbor and also for private clients and public spaces, as both permanent and temporary installations. Her work can be found in gardens and collections all over the United States.
She exhibited widely here, including at the Benton Gallery in Southampton and the Arlene Bujese Gallery in East Hampton, and won the best-in-show award in Guild Hall’s 1993 Artist Members Exhibition.
It was “an enchantment with the patterns of Oriental rugs” that led her “out of the studio and into the yard,” according to a 1987 article in The East Hampton Star. “Her intricately designed brickworks are more than patios, they might be called site sculpture. Ms. Kerr calls them ‘rugs,’ because the proportions are right and they provide beauty underfoot, as carpets often do.”
Her son, Garry Kerr, and Joe Goncalves, a mason, cut the bricks and helped her assemble them. After finishing her first rug, she told The Star, she realized “I had become a sculptor. But I didn’t know how difficult it was to do these things.”
Among her public projects was a brick installation at East Hampton Town Hall for a 1987 sculpture exhibition. One of the only pieces to remain on site after the exhibition closed, it was a popular spot for weddings for a time, according to The Star.
“She achieved remarkable recognition for a female sculptor in her 50s,” her family said.
Born Margaret Alice Doorty in Paris on Nov. 26, 1932, to Margaret McDonald and John Chester Doorty, she was baptized at the Notre Dame Cathedral.
When she began speaking French, rather than the English her parents spoke at home, the family moved to a ranch in Montana. She grew up there “with ranch hands, trappers, people from the Blackfoot tribe, orphaned deer, and her horse, George Doorty,” her family said.
She attended a one-room schoolhouse in Ovando, Mont., high school in Yonkers, and earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Cornell University in 1955. It was there that she met her future husband, William B. Kerr. After graduation, she returned to Paris, where she and Mr. Kerr were married on March 16, 1957. They raised their three children in Ithaca, N.Y. Mr. Kerr died in 1973.
In Ithaca, she met Mr. Richenburg, who had been teaching at Cornell. They were married in 1980 and moved to Springs, where she lived for 37 years before relocating to New Hampshire. He died in 2006.
She is survived by her children and their spouses: Blake Kerr and Jamjuree Boonsri-Kerr of Thailand, Meg Kerr and Carl Paulsen of Dover, and Garry Kerr of Missoula, Mont. Also surviving are a stepson, Ronald Richenburg of Oxford, England, six grandchildren, Zachary and Kaley Kerr, Finn and Claire Paulsen, Alexandra Richenburg, and Florent Chang-Pi-Hin, and a great-grandson, Arthur Chang-Pi-Hin.
“Marggy lived her time well, with generosity, grace, and courage,” her family said.
They are planning a memorial gathering at Ashawagh Hall in Springs on June 23 of next year. In her memory, they have suggested planting bulbs or making donations to Doctors Without Borders at doctorswithoutborders.org.
