National Academy of Design Art Students League of New York
Spouse
Mabel Dodge Luhan
Maurice Sterne (Latvian: Moriss Šterns, 1877 or 1878[a] – July 23, 1957) was an American sculptor and painter remembered today for his association with philanthropist Mabel Dodge Luhan, to whom he was married from 1916 to 1923.
Biography
Sterne was born in Liepāja, Latvia, the youngest of five children to an Orthodox Jewish family living in the port city of Libau (now Liepāja), Latvia, when it was part of the Russian Empire. After Sterne's father died, his mother moved the rest of the family to Moscow. In 1889 Sterne, his mother and sister were forced to leave Moscow, and sailed to New York City.[2]
He began his career as a draftsman and painter, and critics noted the similarity of his work, in its volume and weight, to sculpture. In the late 1890s, Sterne studied under Alfred Maurer and Thomas Eakins at the National Academy of Design, and then traveled widely in Europe and the Far East. A trip to Greece in 1908 introduced him to archaic Greek statues, inspiring him to experiment with the form himself in stone.
From 1911 to 1914 he and his friend Karli Sohn-Rethel, a German painter, traveled together to India, the Far East and settled in Bali to paint and sketch, which further informed his later work.
Sterne came to New Mexico in 1916 at the suggestion of his friend, Paul Burlin, and settled in Taos until 1918.[3]
^Thomas E. Luebke, ed., Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): Appendix B, p. 555.
^Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts
^Exhibition of Models for a Monument to the Pioneer Woman at the Chicago Architectural Exhibition, East Galleries, Art Institute of Chicago, June 25 to August 1, 1927