| Birth Name: | Cynthia Dorothy Albritton |
| Birth Date: | 24 May 1947 |
| Birth Place: | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Education: | University of Illinois Chicago |
| Known For: | Sculpting |
Cynthia Dorothy Albritton (May 24, 1947 – April 21, 2022), better known by the pseudonym Cynthia Plaster Caster, was an American visual artist and self-described "recovering groupie" who gained fame for creating plaster casts of celebrities' erect penises.
Albritton began her career in 1968 by casting penises of rock musicians. She later expanded her subjects to include filmmakers and other types of artists, eventually amassing a collection of 50 plaster phalluses.[1] In 2000, she began casting female artists' breasts.
Albritton was born in Chicago.[2] In the late 1960s, she became active in the free love and rock music subcultures. Albritton studied at the University of Illinois Chicago.[2] [3] In college, when her art teacher gave the class an assignment to "plaster cast something solid that could retain its shape", she had the idea to create a lifecast of an erect penis, which would then become flaccid and exit the mold. She created molds using alginate, and Jimi Hendrix was the first celebrity that she made a cast of.
Frank Zappa found the concept of her casts both humorous and creative, though he himself had no interest in having his penis cast. Zappa became a patron of Albritton and moved her to Los Angeles. In 1971, after her apartment was burgled, Zappa and Albritton entrusted her casts to Herb Cohen for safekeeping. Albritton sought to create an art exhibition of her casts, but did not have enough participants. She made no new casts between 1971 and 1980.
In 1993, Albritton filed a lawsuit against Cohen because he would not return the casts that she had given him for safekeeping. She got all but three back.[4] [5] In 2000, Albritton held her first exhibition of the casts in New York City. She also decided to begin casting women's breasts.
In 2009, Albritton won the Rob Pruitt Award at the first annual Guggenheim Art Awards, held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.[6] She was a candidate for mayor of Chicago in the 2011 election on the "Hard Party" ticket.
Albritton died from cerebrovascular disease at a care facility in Chicago on April 21, 2022, at the age of 74.[2] [7] Shortly before her death, Albritton donated a copy of her 1968 plaster cast of Jimi Hendrix's erect penis to the Icelandic Phallological Museum.[8]
Albritton's life has served as inspiration for multiple pieces of media, such as Good Girls Revolt, The Banger Sisters,[9] and Drive-Away Dolls.[10] [11] In 2001, a documentary film, Plaster Caster, was made about her.[12] She also contributed to the 2005 BBC Three documentary My Penis and I, made by British filmmaker Lawrence Barraclough about his anxiety over his penis size.[13]
She inspired the songs "Five Short Minutes" by Jim Croce[14] and "Plaster Caster" by Kiss. She is also mentioned in Momus' song "The Penis Song" and the Le Tigre song "Nanny Nanny Boo Boo". Albritton's voice features in a recorded telephone conversation in the album Permanent Damage by The GTOs[15]