Exploring the full range of the work of French artist Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), this book also reveals the deep significance of Rodin's oeuvre to the history of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, which holds one of the finest collections of Rodin sculpture in the United States. The publication contains examples from his early days as a struggling artist to his mature and most successful works. The majority of the bronzes are lifetime casts by the sculptor, making this collection a rare and significant body of Rodin's output. A related group of plaster models and fragments augment these major pieces, adding to the scope and breadth of this volume. Showcasing beautiful new photography of more than fifty of Rodin's most iconic artworks alongside an illuminating essay, this book will delight and surprise readers with its novel insights into one of the greatest sculptors in art history. Exhibition: Legion of Honor, San Francisco, USA (28.01. - 10.12.2017).

This definitive monograph from the Musée Rodin in Paris on the pioneering artist who paved the way for modern sculpture is now available in an affordable compact format. Revered today as the greatest sculptor of all time, whose expressive style prefigured that of the modernist movement and abstract sculpture, Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) stirred up much controversy during his lifetime, and his sculptures often met with hostility and incomprehension from his peers. This monograph traces the life and work of the artist, from his youth and early poverty-stricken years of apprenticeship to his most celebrated works—The Kiss, The Thinker, The Gates of Hell—which have become veritable icons; and from his passionate and tumultuous relationship with Camille Claudel to his extraordinary studio, working methods, and sources of inspiration, and his final years marked by war and illness. Written by experts from the Musée Rodin in Paris, this richly illustrated volume includes drawings, watercolors, engravings, and archival documents, as well as specially commissioned photographs of Rodin’s sculptures, completed by a chronology, bibliography, and history of the Musée Rodin—housed in the artist’s former studio in the Hôtel Biron. Providing insight into the many facets of his creative genius, this new compact edition of the Musée Rodin’s definitive reference on the artist and his oeuvre coincides with museum’s reopening in September 2015.

The late Albert Elsen was the first American scholar to study seriously the work of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, and the person most responsible for a revival of interest in the artist as a modern innovator--after years during which the sculpture had been dismissed as so much Victorian bathos. After a fortuitous meeting with the financier, philanthropist, and art collector B. Gerald Cantor, Elsen helped Cantor to build up a major collection of Rodin's work. A large part of this collection, consisting of more than 200 pieces, was donated to the Stanford Museum by Mr. Cantor, who died recently. In size it is surpassed only the by the Musée Rodin in Paris and rivaled only by the collection in Philadelphia. In scope the collection is unique in having been carefully selected to present a balanced view of Rodin's work throughout his life. Rodin's Art encompasses a lifetime's thoughts on Rodin's career, surveying the artist's accomplishments through the detailed discussion of each object in the collection. It will begin with essays on the formation of the collection, the reception of Rodin's work, and his casting techniques. The entries that follow are arranged topically and include extensive discussions of Rodin's major projects.