On View
Not on viewObject number1960/1.280
Young Girl with Upraised Arms
Artist
Doris Caesar
(American, 1892-1971)
Date1955
Mediumbronze
DimensionsOverall: 6 ft. 3 in. × 19 in. × 13 1/2 in. (190.5 × 48.3 × 34.3 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Cameron Davis
Exhibition History"Two by Twenty: Artists from the KIA Collection," KIA (Sept. 3 - Dec. 5, 1996).
"Art, Music & Feminism in the 1950s," KIA Galleries 3 & 4 (January 21 - May 7, 2023).
Label TextBy the 1950s, Doris Caesar had already cast bronze sculptures for nearly three decades. However, during the ʼ50s, she narrowed her focus and abandoned the male figure, portraiture, and details. Instead, she explored a single topic—the female form—more deeply and fully. Caesar’s forms are expressionistic in style, with elongated bodies, small heads, and mask-like faces. In 1959, the Whitney Museum of American Art curated an exhibition entitled Four American Expressionists, which featured Caesar alongside three male counterparts. Curator and essayist John I. H. Baur wrote about Caesar’s sculptures for the catalog, saying, “They speak in spontaneous gestures, tempered by an odd self-consciousness, and evident awareness of their bodies and what these tell of a woman’s inner life. If the revelation is nearly painful in its intimacy, it is also a deeply compassionate expression of the essences of womanhood.” [Label for "Art, Music & Feminism in the 1950s”, 2023]
