Richard Reitz Smith

Richard Reitz Smith is an artist and designer who creates work within the fine arts as a painter, printmaker, book artist. Within book arts, he is a letterpress printer, as well as a bookbinder and papermaker. He relishes opportunities to blend any or all these disciplines wherever he can and is steadily improving his writing skills to better incorporate his love of language into his work.

 Richard grew up in a rural western Pennsylvania farming village nestled in the Appalachian foothills. He holds a BFA in fine art (painting and illustration) from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in graphic design from Tyler School of Art.

 He has worked in the arts for over 30 years as a professor, graphic designer, freelance illustrator, package designer, book artist, book designer, and letterpress printer to name a few.

Richard is currently the chair of the Book Arts Program and studio manager at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine where he teaches workshops in letterpress printing, book creation and design. He works with other artists to offer a wide range of classes at Maine Media. 

 In the past few years, since being the inaugural book artist in residence at Maine MEdia Workshops + College, he has collaborated with artists, designers, and writers to create limited editions. Some of these have been placed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England and both the Beinecke and Haas Libraries at Yale University, among other collections.