Gaston Lachaise was a French-born sculptor, active in America in the early 20th century. A native of Paris, he is most noted for his female nudes such as his heroic Standing Woman. Gaston Lachaise was taught the fundamentals of European sculpture while living in France. While still a student, he met and fell in love with an older American woman, Isabel Dutaud Nagle, then followed her after she returned to America. There, he became profoundly impressed by the great vitality and promise of his adopted country. Those life-altering experiences clarified his artistic vision and inspired him to define the female nude in a new and powerful manner. His drawings, typically made as ends in themselves, also exemplify his remarkably new treatment of the female body.
Gaston Lachaise photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1934
Floating Figure (1927, bronze), no. 5 from an edition of 7, Purchased 1978 by the National Gallery of Australia
Standing Woman at UCLA, 1932
Georgia O'Keeffe (marble), 1927, Metropolitan Museum of Art
École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century.
Palais des études of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris
Courtyard of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris