Cecil Howard
Cecil Howard was born at Niagara Falls on April 2nd in 1888 , he had english parents who set up in Buffalo two years later. In 1895, he became american. In 1905, he came in Paris in the Montparnasse neighbourhood and joined the Académie Julien. He soon met R. Bugatti, with who he went to Anvers where he created animal sculptures. But he quickly let animal sculpture to study nude figures and portraits. In 1913, he carved a lifelike dimensions figure depicting Lucy trogh, Pascin’s partner. In 1911, he met his wife, Céline Coujet. At the beginning of the First World War, he was hired in the Red Cross Association before going back to USA in 1915, then to France in 1916 where he met G. Apollinaire and the main cubist artists of this time. Then he created 995 plaster figures strongly influenced by this movement and mainly by Robert and Sonia Delaunay From 1920, Cecil Howard was interested in a more classical kind of sculpture, under the influence of his friend, Charles Despiau. He mostly worked on nude sculpture, female as well as male, of athletes in motion, which are often exhibited at the SNBA, the Salon des Tuileries, the Salon d’ Automne and moreover in USA where Gertrude Vanderlilt Wihtng bought the biggest part of his production. He praticed direct carve and also the modelling to make his bronzes. After being present in France for 35 years, he went back to USA in 1941 in New York. He was hired again in the Red Cross during the Second World War