Gaston Lachaise was a French-born American artist known for his sculptures and drawings of the female form. Focusing on the voluptuous qualities of breasts, thighs, and buttocks, Lachaise achieved a modern equivalent to Paleolithic fertility idols, as seen in his Standing Woman (1932). Lachaise once expressed his artistic ambition to be, “the glorification of the human body, of the human spirit, with all that there is of daring, of magnificence, of significance.” Born on March 19, 1882 in Paris, France, Lachaise entered a decorative sculpture school at the age of 13, enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts three years later. In 1902, the artist met his muse and future wife, an American woman named Isabel Nagle, he was immediately infatuated with...