Gaston Lachaise collection

The Gaston Lachaise collection contains correspondence, writings, photographs, scrapbooks, and other materials documenting the life and artistic career of French sculptor Gaston Lachaise. The General Correspondence in the collection consists chiefly of incoming and outgoing correspondence between Gaston Lachaise and others, including family, friends, artists and writers, art critics and patrons, and cultural institutions. The correspondence features 567 outgoing letters from Lachaise to his wife Isabel Dutaud Nagle Lachaise,dating from 1910 to 1934, and incoming correspondence from New York area artists and cultural figures of the 1920s and 1930s. There are only a few pieces of writing by Lachaise, including a typescript draft of the essay "A Comment on My Sculpture" published in Creative Art in 1928, and several works by others relating to Lachaise. Photographs include over 200 black-and-white images of Lachaise, family members, and friends, and of artwork by Lachaise and French sculptor Pierre-Robert Christophe. Scrapbooks and printed ephemera document publicity and critical reception of Lachaise's work from the 1920s through 1970s and other materials, such as lists of Lachaise's work and the names of private owners, identify his work and document its custodial history. Lastly, third-party correspondence can be found between Gaston Lachaise's sister Allys and Lincoln Kirstein and others.