Artist 101

1.

Beginnings

Rodin was born in 1840 to a working-class family in Paris. He began drawing at 10 and enrolled the École Impériale Spéciale de Dessin et de Mathématiques at 14, where he received lessons in painting and sculpture. In 1857 he submitted a clay model to the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but was rejected. Two subsequent applications to the École were also turned down.

Rodin spent the next 20 years working as a craftsman, producing ornaments, furniture and architectural embellishments for several ateliers and workshops. His work as assistant of the prestigious sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, which began in 1863, would prove crucial. Carrier-Belleuse worked across a wide range of techniques and materials, from Sèvres porcelain to marble, which allowed Rodin to hone a variety of skills. When Carrier-Belleus was commissioned to produce the ornamentation of the Brussels Stock Exchange in 1870, he asked Rodin to join him in Brussels and work with him on the project. Rodin would spend the next six years in Belgium combining his work for Carrier-Belleuse with the development of his own work. In 1875 he travelled to Italy for two months and studied the work of Donatello and Michelangelo, which had a deep impact on his practice.

2.

Rodin's Studio

Rodin began work on The Age of Bronze in 1876, while still in Belgium. The life-size sculpture of a young Belgian soldier was so uncannily accurate that, when it was first exhibited in Paris the following year, it drew accusations of cheating, with critics suggesting Rodin had made the cast of the sculpture directly from the subject’s body. The scandal deeply hurt Rodin, leading him to break with the conventions of classical sculpture. Instead, Rodin pursued a new artistic path, one concerned with expressing complex human emotions.

Back in Paris, Rodin established an independent studio, employing plaster casters, carvers, founders, and assistants to produce works commissioned by both private and public clients. Camille Claudel was Rodin’s most significant assistant, who worked on important projects such as The Gates of Hell. Claudel’s talent profoundly influenced Rodin’s work and she is now widely celebrated as an artist in her own right.  

In the studio, Rodin developed an exacting, labour-intensive artistic process that began with preparatory drawings to explore poses, movement and perspectives. He then modelled figures working mostly by hand, using a range of materials and techniques that included clay, plaster casting, lost wax and sand casting. Carved works often required collaboration with specialist assistants in his studio, who would work from Rodin’s clay models using a pantograph to scale the original model up or down.

3.

Major Public Commissions

By 1880, major public commissions had started rolling in. The first one, requested by the French government, was the access doors for the planned Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. Titled The Gates of Hell, the monumental project would depict scenes from Dante's Inferno in high relief and feature 186 figures, including some of his most famous sculptures such as The Thinker. Rodin worked on The Gates of Hell for over 20 years, although the museum was never built.

Another major project was The Burghers of Calais, a public sculpture that Rodin was commissioned in 1885 to commemorate the hostages who sacrificed themselves during the Hundred Years’ War. Rodin created an ensemble of six figures, each manifesting emotional responses to the idea of collective sacrifice, such as courage, pain, and acceptance.

Rodin also worked on several commissions to commemorate cultural personalities of the time, such as Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo, both created in 1891.

4.

Legacy

Rodin left a towering legacy in the history of art, manifested in a radical body of work that paved the way for modern sculpture. He achieved this by developing new techniques in the studio that allowed expression and imperfection to claim a unique place in his sculptures.

Today, his fascinating output is the subject of regular museum exhibitions. In 2021, London’s Tate Modern hosted The Making of Rodin, focusing on the importance of plaster in his work. In 2017, the Met Museum in New York celebrated the centenary of Rodin’s death by staging a major survey of his work. Meanwhile, the Musée Rodin in Paris is dedicated to the display and research of Rodin’s work and holds a collection of 6,600 sculptures, 8,000 drawings, 8,000 old photographs and 7,000 objects.

5.

Collecting

 

In recent years, Bonhams has sold a number of important pieces by Rodin that, in keeping his artistic stature, have commanded prices firmly within the six figures. For example, in 2019 the stunning nude study in bronze L'un des Bourgeois de Calais: Étude de nu monumentale pour Pierre de Wissant fetched £675,062 in the Impressionist & Modern Art sale in London. Also that year, a small bronze version of The Kiss sold for $350,075 at Bonhams New York while a reduction of The Age of Bronze went for £260,750 at Bonhams London.

Those venturing into the world of Rodin for the first time or with different budgets can focus on smaller works, such as a reduction of his famous Jean de Fiennes figure (from The Burghers of Calais) which sold for £62,562, or his mixed media drawing Satan et un adorateur (Serpent), which achieved £168,812 in 2019.

Hannah Noel-Smith, Head of Department of Impressionist & Modern Art in London, gives the following advice to collectors:

“Auguste Rodin remains the father of modern sculpture. His deeply expressive works touch at the very heart of human experience and continue to resonate with his audience generation after generation. Rodin’s sculpture can be acquired at a wide range of entry points.

His most iconic and career-defining subjects such as The Kiss and The Age of Bronze demand the highest prices, however small works such as the studies of hands are offered at very accessible levels. Life-time bronze casts are often most sought after by collectors, but increasingly there is a shift towards a concern for the quality of patina and casting which can often be superior in posthumous casts. Always be sure to check that works are sold with a certificate of authenticity from the Comité Auguste Rodin.”

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