Cynthia Albritton, better known as Cynthia Plaster Caster, has passed away at the age of 74.
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Albritton was a visual artist and self-described “recovering groupie” whose claim to fame was creating plaster casts of rock stars’ erect penises and breasts. Born in Chicago in 1947, she got her start in art school in the 60s after being given an assignment to create a plaster cast of something solid. Her first subject was Jimi Hendrix, who was cast in 1968 while on tour in Chicago.
Over the years she created casts of various rock stars including Peter Tork of The Monkees, Wayne Kramer of MC5, Gene Simmons of KISS, Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and many more.
In 1977, KISS released the song “Plaster Caster,” which paid tribute to Albritton with lines like “The plaster's getting harder and my love is perfection/A token of my love for her collection, her collection.”
Her work eventually caught the attention of Frank Zappa, who found her art to be humorous and creative. While he never participated, Zappa helped her move to Los Angeles in 1971. After her apartment was broken into, Zappa and Albritton decided that the casts should be preserved for future exhibition and gave them to Zappa’s legal partner, Herb Cohen, for safekeeping.
An exhibition never got off the ground and Albritton had to take Cohen to court to retrieve 25 casts that he held. She eventually got all of them back except for three and held her first exhibition in New York City in 2000.
Albritton passed away this week following a lengthy illness.
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