Rodin: A Life of Creativity and Controversy

Auguste Rodin: an artist whose extraordinary creativity, vast technical prowess, and outsized personality earned him a place among the world’s greatest sculptors. Despite his natural abilities, Rodin’s world-wide success came neither instantly nor easily. Alongside the accolades came a lifetime of controversy starting early when critics accused him of casting a nude male sculpture directly from his model’s body. Even decades later at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair—his renown firmly established—Rodin’s nudes were deemed so shocking that overseers hid them behind a curtain, available for viewing only upon request. Despite decades of rejection from official French academies and shortsighted patrons, Rodin never compromised his vision, thus gifting the world a body of work that continues to resonate with modern audiences.

Controversy continues to follow Rodin long after his death. By its very nature, sculpting in metal allows for multiple castings. In the case of Rodin, this has led to serious questions about what constitutes an "original" by the artist. Strict laws exist, which if followed assiduously, will stamp a work as legitimate. If not, Caveat Emptor.

Dr. Arbitman received both an MA and Ph.D. in art history from the University of Pittsburgh with a specialization in seventeenth-century Dutch art. After serving as the first curator-in-charge of The Frick Art Museum in 1985, she went on to become the director of the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University and the Executive Director of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Florida.

IMAGE: Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917). The Age of Bronze, medium-sized model, first reduction, 1876; cast 1967. Bronze, 41 ¼ x 15 x 13 in. (104.8 x 38.1 x 33 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of B. Gerald Cantor, 68.49. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)