Recchia was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, with the given name Ricardo; his father was a marble carver who had worked for Bela Pratt and Daniel Chester French.
He studied from 1904-1907 in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and served as assistant to his teacher, Bela Pratt, until 1917.
His first major commission was a set of allegorical panels representing architecture for the exterior of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In 1915, he won medals for several works exhibited at San Francisco's Panama-Pacific Exposition.
He died in Rockport, Massachusetts, where he is buried under his self-sculpted tombstone at the Beech Grove Cemetery.