Gaston Lachaise

Gaston Lachaise was a French American sculptor whose heroic depictions of women reconsider traditional portrayals of the female figure. Having studied sculpture in his native Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and worked as a modeler for Art Nouveau jeweler Rene Lalique, Lachaise brought a considerable wealth of knowledge and talent with him to the United States where he moved in pursuit of his future wife and muse Isabel Dutaud Nagle. There, Lachaise would define the nude in new and powerful ways.
 

Although Lachaise was a highly skilled, versatile, and knowledgeable sculptor, his practice reached new heights in the United States as he refined the core of his work: the concept of the woman as an embodiment of fundamental force, inspired by his wife, whom he viewed as the paragon of potent womanhood. Not long before he created both versions of Garden Figure, Lachaise summed up what he sought to achieve in his art: “The main thing is vitality.” FOOTNOTE: New York Herald-Tribune (New York, N.Y.), January 14, 1935, p. 7 [interview].