Gaston Lachaise

Best known for his sumptuous bronze sculptures of female nudes, Gaston Lachaise created a large body of cast portraits during his life, synthesizing classic technique with a modernist vernacular. Born in Paris, Lachaise immigrated to the United States in 1906 in pursuit of his muse and eventual wife, Isabel Dutaud Nagle, who was the model for many of his sculptures. In the United States, he traded his academic style of portraiture for a modernist approach that emphasized forms and textures; this aesthetic is apparent in his small bronze standing figures and busts of men and women. “My interest in portraiture has always been keen, for a portrait of an individual is a synthesis of the prevalent forces within the individual, and in this process there is an expansion for the creator,” Lachaise wrote in 1928.