Doris Porter Caesar (November 8, 1892 – 1971) was an American sculptor best known for her portrayals of the nude female body.

Early life and education

Doris Porter Caesar was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. Caesar attended

Miss Chapin's School Chapin School is an all-girls independent day school in New York City's Upper East Side neighborhood in Manhattan. History Maria Bowen Chapin opened "Miss Chapin's School for Girls and Kindergarten for Boys and Girls" in 1901. The school origin ...

before transferring to the

Spence School , motto_translation = Not for school, but for life we learn , founder = Clara B. Spence , tuition = $60,880 (2022-2023) , chair = , head_label = , head ...

and the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at American Fine Arts Society, 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists ...

, where she studied under

George Bridgman George Brant Bridgman (November 5, 1864 – December 16, 1943) was a Canadian-American painter, writer, and teacher in the fields of anatomy and figure drawing. Bridgman taught anatomy for artists at the Art Students League of New York for some ...

. In 1913, she married and subsequently had three children. In 1925 she studied under

Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; uk, Олександр Порфирович Архипенко, Romanized: Olexandr Porfyrovych Arkhypenko; February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian and American ...

, under whom she developed her

expressionistic Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

approach to representing the female body. Doris' first solo show occurred in 1931 at the Montross Gallery.

Work

Caesar experimented with sculpting the female body in clay,

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

, and brass, often elongating the figures to be taller than human height. In 1927, she cast her first bronze, the primary material she would work with throughout her career. She took this bronze to E. Weyhe, a dealer on Lexington Avenue in New York City, who gave her access to his collection of

German Expressionist German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

artists. There, she was inspired by

Ernst Barlach Ernst Heinrich Barlach (2 January 1870 – 24 October 1938) was a German expressionist sculptor, medallist, printmaker and writer. Although he was a supporter of the war in the years leading to World War I, his participation in the war made him c ...

Wilhelm Lehmbruck Wilhelm Lehmbruck (4 January 188125 March 1919) was a German sculptor. Biography Born in Meiderich (part of Duisburg from 1905), he was the fourth of eight children born to the miner Wilhelm Lehmbruck and his wife Margaretha. He was able to stu ...

, and

Käthe Kollwitz Käthe Kollwitz ( born as Schmidt; 8 July 1867 – 22 April 1945) was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking (including etching, lithography and woodcuts) and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including ''The Weavers'' and ''T ...

, whose work led her to turn away from classical forms and begin distorting the figures she sculpted until they were "stick-like." Unfortunately, most of her work in the 1920s and 1930s was destroyed; the bulk of her major work was created in the following two decades after she moved to

North Salem, New York North Salem is a town in the northeastern section of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is a suburb of New York City, located approximately 50 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. The population of North Salem was 5,104 at the 2010 cens ...

and then to

Litchfield, Connecticut Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,192 at the 2020 census. The boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are located within the town. There are also three unincorporat ...

, where she died in 1971. In an article published in Hill News (March 11, 1975), Caesar says that she chose sculpture "because it's big and fights against you all the time".

Major works

*1947: ''Mother and Child'' *1950: ''Descent from the Cross'' *1955: ''Kneeling Torso'' *1957: ''Ascent''

Exhibitions

*1931: First solo exhibition at the Montross Gallery in New York City *1934: Solo exhibition at the Montross Gallery *1935: Solo exhibition at the E. Weyhe Bookshop and Gallery, New York City *1943: Exhibition by Curt Valentin, New York City *1957: Annual Exhibition,

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude ...

, New York City *1959: "Four American Expressionists," Whitney Museum, New York City

References

External links

Doris Caesar Papers at Syracuse UniversityDoris Caesar Papers at Wichita State University
*Chwiecko, Nancy
"Doris Caesar: Her Sculpture Fight."
''Hill News''. March 11, 1976. Retrieved February 1, 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Caesar, Doris 1892 births 1971 deaths Art Students League of New York alumni American women sculptors People from Brooklyn Artists from Brooklyn 20th-century American sculptors People from North Salem, New York 20th-century American women artists Spence School alumni Sculptors from New York (state) Chapin School (Manhattan) alumni