Meet the Artist

LOLITA SAPRIEL was born in Cairo, Egypt and moved to the United States as a child, currently residing in Malibu, CA. Earning a BA in French from UCLA, she taught French at the University of Oregon, and later at Caltech for 10 years. Changing direction, she then earned an MSW from USC, going on to private practice as a psychotherapist, a satisfying career path she continues to enjoy today. But as a woman with many diverse interests, she developed a love for sculpture while still an undergraduate at UCLA, and began working with a clay sculptor named Vito Paulekas, in a studio in West Hollywood. She attended Art School at California State College of Los Angeles in the early 1960’s, working with California sculptor, ceramicist and poet Malcolm MacClain, followed by a year in the Art Department at the University of Oregon in Eugene.  Both departments had a foundry, and she learned the fine art of bronze casting, one of the most challenging of all art mediums. Her first pieces, influenced by Henry Moore, were created using the “Direct Lost Wax” method of casting, where no mold is involved, so the piece has to come out right the first time, or not at all. 

In the 1970’s Lolita began experimenting with plastics and welding, in workshops at UCLA with artists Dwayne Valentine and Tony Berlant. In the 1980’s she fell in love with stone and switched away from bronze casting to work with alabaster and marble, now her chosen mediums.  California sculptors Charles Fulmer and Mary Ann DeVine, with their vast knowledge of classical sculpture, have both been important mentors in her development as an artist. The move from creating wax figures to be cast in bronze into carving stone directly was a major shift, as it requires a completely different approach to art-making. Instead of “adding on”, the artist has to subtract stone to arrive at the finished sculpture.  Lolita is now a “direct stone carver,” interacting directly with the stone to find and create her pieces. Rather than working from photographs, models or drawings, she instead works from memory or intuition.

Her fascination with Ancient Egyptian art has been with her since childhood, where she grew up surrounded and immersed in the fascinating history, culture and artifacts of that time. Her work has been substantially influenced by ancient Egyptian, Greek and Cycladic art.  That direction can be seen in the evolution of her body of work in stone and marble. The ancient permanence of stone with its juxtaposition of rough and smooth, finished and unfinished areas, is suited to her desire to capture both the non-linear aspect of time, as well as an archaeological quality of timelessness.

Lolita had her first one-woman show in 1967 at a gallery on La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles and has been showing in various galleries in Malibu, Ventura and LA County ever since. She considers herself a contemporary figurative artist, and her pieces are scaled for home interiors and offices, although she welcomes commissions for larger pieces or public art.  Her work can be found in private homes across the United States and Europe.