Standing Woman

Description

Standing Woman is a heroic bronze statue of a confident, robust nude woman by Gaston Lachaise, modeled between 1928 and 1930 and first cast in bronze in 1933.

Lachaise’s “standing woman” embodies strength and monumentality, along with serenity and grace, captured in a beautiful figural gesture that may have been inspired by the renowned modern dancer Ruth St. Denis. The sculptor further emphasized these qualities by placing the bronze on a 20-inch-high base. Lachaise envisioned the figure, already larger than life, as “exalted, raised up, presented at a respectful distance, given a circle of solitude.” First conceived by the artist in plaster around 1912 and altered over several years, Dimensions: Overall: 68 × 28 × 16 in. (172.72 × 71.12 × 40.64 cm)

Location: UCLA’s Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden.

Born in France, Gaston Lachaise immigrated to the United States when he was 24 years old. He modeled Woman (Elevation) after Isabel Dutaud Nagle, whom he married in 1917, telling her, “I want to create a miracle with it… as great as you.” Although it evokes his subject’s appearance, this sculpture represents Lachaise’s first full-scale expression of the idealized female form that would dominate his art. The figure’s long legs support a voluptuous torso that recalls ancient fertility goddesses and a disproportionally small waist that accentuates her ample hips and breasts. Modernists like Lachaise were fascinated by preclassical art because they believed it possessed a primitive vitality absent from later art forms.
Artist
Gaston Lachaise
Title
Woman (Elevation)
Place
United States (Artist’s nationality:)
Date
Modeled 1912–1915
Medium
Bronze
Inscriptions
Cast on base: G. Lachaise © 1927
Dimensions
With base: 182.9 × 71.1 × 43.2 cm (72 1/16 × 28 × 17 1/16 in.)