Cynthia Albritton, Artist Known as Cynthia Plaster Caster, Dead at 74

Cynthia Albritton, also known as the legendary Cynthia Plaster Caster — the alias that sprung from her plaster casts of famous musician and artists’ body parts, mainly erect penises and women’s breasts — has died after a long illness on Thursday, friends close to the artist confirmed. She was 74.

What began as a college art project that fulfilled her “groupie” love for music became a decades-long work. Albritton’s first famous cast was Jimi Hendrix. She went on to document a range of musicians from different genres and eras, including Dennis Thompson and Wayne Kramer of MC5, Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, as well the breasts of Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, Peaches, and Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Her work spanned artists in other realms, including film.

For those that knew Albritton, she was viewed both a strong conceptual artist and also a really big music fan. If you were lucky enough to meet her out and about, typically at a music venue in Chicago, she simply introduced herself as Cynthia, called everyone “doll,” and was as sweet as she was funny.

When it came to her art, Albritton’s friend and former manager Mitch Marlow says she wanted to keep things pure and true and was concerned about “never selling out” even when she was late on rent. “She would never cast somebody for commission just because they wanted it,” he tells IndieLand. “She wouldn’t even sell to people that she didn’t like, even if she needed the money.”

Born in 1947 in Chicago, she began her art career in college when her art professor assigned a project involving plaster casts. On Feb. 25, 1968 she cast her first famous musician’s penis: Jimmy Hendrix. She later met Frank Zappa, who did not participate in the artwork but did like the concept, as noted in a 1969 interview with IndieLand. “It was the most fantastic thing I ever heard,” Zappa said of the Plaster Casters (Albritton worked with a partner named Dianne then) at the time. “I appreciate what they’re doing, both artistically and sociologically. Sociologically it’s really heavy. I’m their advisor to see that they’re not mistreated,” he said, likening their work to neon sculpture. Albritton, then 21 years old, was already viewing her nascent art career with a wider lens. “Eventually, I’d like to get other types of people,” she said. “You know, have a whole museum of casts. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Zappa moved her to Los Angeles where she continued her work. Following her apartment being broken into, the two decided to give more than two-dozen casts to Zappa’s legal partner Herb Cohen to protect the work for a potential future exhibit. Cohen kept the art longer than what Albritton wanted, and it took several years and a court appearance for her to retrieve all but three.

In 2000, Albritton held her first exhibit in New York. A year later, the documentary Plaster Caster was released and the BBC documentary My Penis and I followed in 2005. In 2010, she ran for mayor of Chicago.

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