The American sculptor Nancy Stevenson Graves (1940-1995) established herself with the life-sized, realistic camel constructions she developed between 1965 and 1969. Using a multiplicity of materials and a wide range of sources, she focused her talents on filmmaking, painting, printmaking, stage designing, and watercolor as well as sculpture.

Nancy Stevenson Graves was born on December 23, 1940, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where her father worked as assistant to the director of the Berkshire Museum. Her early exposure to this institution where art, history, and science were presented under the same roof profoundly influenced her later work. She attended Vassar College, majoring in English literature and studying painting and drawing (B.A. 1961), but it was not until she entered the Yale School of Art and Architecture that the intense, competitive world of a fine arts education became available to her. She earned B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees at Yale.

After graduation...