Clara Sorensen

Clara Barth Leonard Sorenson Dieman (1877–1959) was an American female sculptor, painter and teacher[1] from Indianapolis, Indiana.[2] She was a former student of well known artists such as William Forsyth, Alexander Archipenko and Lorado Taft,[3] who she worked on Fountain of Time with.[4] Between 1907 and 1916, Leonard taught introductory sculpture classes at the John Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis.[2] In 1917, she graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago, where she had been a student of Taft's, and she later studied at Columbia University as well.[1]

Clara Barth Leonard was married twice, to Niels Sorenson and to Charles Dieman

During her career as a sculptor,Sorenson frequently worked in portraiture, completing a bas-relief of William A. Bell for the Indianapolis school of the same name, and in 1916, a bronze memorial plaque in honor of Shortridge High School custodian James Biddy.[5] She participated in a number of art exhibitions across the United States, including in Chicago, Illinois, New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Santa Fe, New Mexico,[2] where she spent the latter part of her life.[1]

For a while Dieman lived in Denver Colorado, Taft places her there in 1925 [6] and while there she worked and studied with Robert Garrison at least until 1929.[7]

Sources

  1. ^ a b c John Powers; Deborah Powers (2000). Texas Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists. Woodmont Books. p. 136. 
  2. ^ a b c Judith Vale Newton; Carol Ann Weiss (2004). Skirting the Issue: Stories of Indiana's Historical Women Artists. Historical Society Press. pp. 269–271. 
  3. ^ Peter Hastings Falk, ed (1999). Who was who in American Art 1564-1975 Vol. 1. Sound View Press. p. 915. 
  4. ^ Indianapolis News. September 11, 1959. “Clara Dieman, Sculptor, Dead in New Mexico.”
  5. ^ Indianapolis News. October 10, 1916. “Biddy Tablet at Shortridge.”
  6. ^ Taft, Lorado, ‘’The History of American Sculpture’’, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1925 p. 586
  7. ^ Schlosser, Elizabeth, ‘’Modern Sculpture in Denver (1919-1960): Twelve Denver Sculptors’’, Ocean View Books, Denver CO 1995 p. 20