Male Torso

After training in Philadelphia and New York, Dorothy Austin returned to her hometown of Dallas and began a series of male and female torsos, of which the Museum's fine _Male Torso_ is a stellar example. The _Dallas Morning News_ cautioned 1933 audiences, "The timid may be somewhat startled at the directness with which the young sculptor when about the business of representing a male torso."

The smooth, shiny surface of this relatively compact figure contrasts with its powerful, incised musculature. The nudity and missing appendages are reminiscent of Greek sculpture, particularly Attic kouros figures.

**Drawn from**

* Eleanor Jones Harvey, DMA Acquisition proposal (1994.175), March 2001.
* William Keyse Rudolph, DMA Label copy (1994.175), August 2008.

* Rick Stewart, _Lone Star Regionalism: The Dallas Nine and their Circle, 1928-1945_ (Austin, TX: Texas Monthly Press, 1985).