Doris Porter Caesar (November 8, 1892 – 1971) was a sculptor best known for her portrayals of the nude female body. Caesar experimented with sculpting the female body in clay, bronze, and brass, often elongating the figures to be taller than human height. In 1927, she cast her first bronze, the primary material she would work with throughout her career.
She took this bronze to E. Weyhe,
a dealer on Lexington Avenue in New York City, who gave her access to his
collection of German Expressionist artists. There, she was inspired by Ernst
Barlach, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and Käthe Kollwitz, whose work led her to turn away
from classical forms and begin distorting the figures she sculpted until they
were "stick-like."
Unfortunately, most of her work in the 1920s
and 1930s was destroyed; the bulk of her major work was created in the
following two decades after she moved to North Salem, New York and then to
Litchfield, Connecticut, where she died in 1971
