Glenna Goodacre, a master of expressive, monumental bronze sculpture who created the Vietnam Women’s Memorial in Washington, honoring thousands of female veterans with the Mall’s first monument to American military women, died April 13 at her home in Santa Fe, N.M. She was 80.

Her death was announced on Instagram by Ms. Goodacre’s son-in-law, singer Harry Connick Jr., the husband of actress and former Victoria’s Secret model Jill Goodacre Connick. Ms. Goodacre’s health had declined in recent years, said her manager, Dan Anthony, and she had been hospitalized in February for routine surgery.

Ms. Goodacre painted portraits before refashioning herself as a sculptor, working with clay from her Santa Fe studio despite no formal training in the medium. In a field long dominated by men, she became a prominent creator of public statues and memorials, accepting commissions from across the country even as some critics dismissed her work as saccharine or simplistic.

“I just plod along and do what I like to do — which are realistic figures,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1992. She had gone to art school when abstraction dominated, but she said she preferred figurative works and had little interest in pieces that could horrify or disturb. “I like art you can live with,” she added.