Caroline Risque

Caroline Everett Risque Janis (August 20, 1883 – April 9, 1952) was an American painter, sculptor and a member of the early 20th-century artistic group The Potters.

Early life George Julian Zolnay had just completed the lions for Edward Gardner Lewis' Lion Gates when he became director of the People's University's Art Academy and head of the sculpture division. In this photograph, he is in the studio with several of the sculpture honors students. Christian Kiehl is on the left at the high bench. Caroline Risque is on the left working on a piece of sculpture on a stool. Zolnay is seated at the desk just right of center. Nancy Coonsman is kneeling on the far right. The large pieces of sculpture in the room are Zolnay's work.

Caroline Risque was the daughter of Ferdinand William Risque, born in Georgetown, D.C. , and Aline Tilghman (Brooks) Risque, of Mobile, Alabama. She had two surviving sisters out of a total of five siblings: Aline Brooks Risque (1885–1964), who married Vice-Admiral Lloyd Toulmin Chalker, of New York; and Ethel Risque (b. 1889) who married John Blizard, of Ottawa.

Risque attended the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, under George Julian Zolnay, and followed him at the University City, Missouri in 1909, when Zolnay became director of the Art Academy. Risque then attended the Art Students League of New York and finally the Académie Colarossi in Paris, studying under Paul Wayland Bartlett and Jean Antoine Injalbert. In 1916 Risque exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Risque was a teacher at John Burroughs School where she founded the art department and became chair.

She said when it came to her work, she wished that no leniency be shown because it was created by a woman. She wanted to stand or fall as an artist, and not as a "woman artist".

Personal life Caroline Risque lived in St. Louis and New Orleans. Risque's daughter later said her mother's commitment to art suffered from her marriage and from having a child.

Risque is buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, together with her family members. Her husband Julien Janis is buried in nearby Calvary Cemetery.

Legacy

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, the visual arts and design degree granting branch of Washington University in St. Louis, grants each year the Caroline Risque Janis Prize in Sculpture.