form." She was passionate about form but was not seen as a formalist, her style was spare and reserved while remaining expressive. One critic put this aspect of her style in terms of the arch of a cat's back: "A cat's arched back is a pleasingly rounded shape and well balanced on the foundation of paws. But it is still a cat's back, embodying a cat's peculiar physical response to fear or affection." Caparn's sculptures, "Stalking Cat" (at right) and "Standing Bird" (at left) show her ability to create the expressive forms that critics saw in her work. Caparn did not carve hard materials to make her sculptures. Rather than cutting away, she built up, modeling in soft materials such as clay, plasticine, plaster, variants of plaster (hydrocal and densite), and a material called "tattistone". She made free-standing single subjects and subjects in groups as well as reliefs. Her works on paper were in black and white and pastel. Almost all her pieces were small. Once, she said, she made a six-and-a-half-foot statue, adding, "It was fun, but too big. I couldn't move it out of the studio." Caparn's sculpture, "The Bear," (shown at right) is larger than most of her work, but otherwise quite typical of her style. "Greyhounds" (shown at left) is an example of her work in relief. The drawing of foliage (shown at right) is an example of her work on paper. Its subject is reminiscent of her father's landscape photos and plans. Personal life and family Caparn was born on July 18, 1909, in a private resort called Onteora in New York's Catskill Mountains. Caparn's father was Harold ap Rhys Caparn (1863–1945). A British immigrant, he was a successful landscape architect and author, known for his work in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Bronx Zoo, the campus of Brooklyn College, and other public and private gardens. Her mother was Clara Howard Jones (Royall) Caparn (1866–1970), a vocalist and successful voice teacher. Clara Caparn began teaching soon after moving to Manhattan in the early 1900s and, using the professional name "Mrs. C. Howard Royall," succeeded in attracting students among the matrons of New York's social elite and their daughters. She also attracted talented, but less wealthy students and for their benefit frequently held performances to raise scholarship funds. In 1939 she created "An Hour of Music," an organization that supported and encouraged young musicians by giving