“Riv” Pyne was born in Pennsylvania and attended schools in Massachusetts and Tennessee. He received a B. A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 and an M. A. in Education from Cambridge College/Antioch in 1973. From 1968 to 1980 he taught in the Philadelphia Public School System. In 1983 he moved to a small farm on the coast of Maine and has worked at sculpture since.
Pyne is primarily a self-taught artist who has enhanced his abilities and learned the basics from several recognized artists. He works with found wood, epoxies, casting stone and bronze.
His work is all essentially figurative, though highly stylized and humorous. He seldom works from live models or photography and rather prefers to work from memory which can result in some peculiar additions to reality. His work is never unrecognizable. He concentrates mostly on motion or extreme stillness, its opposite.
Pyne’s work has been exhibited at invitational and juried shows in Maine at the Wilson Museum in Castine, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, and the Danforth and Davidson Galleries in Portland. In Massachusetts, he has shown at the New Bedford Museum of Art and was a National Competition Finalist at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. He is a member of the New England Sculpture Association (NESA) and is represented by Harbor Square Gallery in Rockland, ME, Maine ART in Kennebunk, ME, the Kessler Collection, Martin Gallery in Charleston SC, and Stafford Gallery in Healdsburg, CA.