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www.rodinmuseum.org
Gates of Hell, 1880-1917
The Thinker, 1880, bronze
(see also conservation
project)
Eternal Springtime, plaster
Michelangelo - Nude Back View
From the CityPaper.net review |
Rodin Museum of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The Rodin Museum is administered by the Philadelphia
Museum of Fine Art and located just four blocks east of it:
Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 22nd Street
PO Box 7646
Philadelphia, PA 19101-7646 USA
Tel. 001 - 215 - 763 81 00
Fax 001 - 215 - 763 89 55
Curator European Painting and Sculpture: Joe Rishel
Rodin exhibited at the Philadelphia
Centennial Exhibition as early as 1876, (Centennial of American
Independence), as part of the Belgian delegation.
The Philadelphia Museum ordered its copy of The Thinker at the Paris
World Exhibition in 1900.
The Burghers of Calais group was cast between 1919 et 1922 and installed
in 1925.
The largest part of the collection is based on the Jules E. Mastbaum
Donation. This movie theater magnate started collecting Rodin work in
1923, then already with the intention to create a Museum that should
offer a broad view of the artist. Within only three years, by the time
of his death 1926, Mastbaum had built the by then greatest Rodin
collection outside of Paris. He commissioned two French neoclassical
architects to plan a Rodin museum and a sculpture garden. The museum,
which opened to the public in 1929, houses 127 sculptures, including
bronze casts of the artist's greatest works. Most important among these
is the cast of The Gates of Hell, which had been left in plaster at
Rodin's death in 1917. The first cast was kept for the Museum in
Philadelphia and the second was given to the Musée Rodin in Paris.
During her interview
with Christopher Riopelle (then Associate Curator of the Rodin
Museum, now working for the London National Gallery), Daisie Fried
mentions a story from unofficial sources — that Mastbaum learned to
love Rodin from his mistress who, on Mastbaum's costs, went to study
sculpture in France and returned full of respect for the French master.
According to the story, he planned to build the museum and let her run
it; but as he died in 1926 his wife threw the mistress out. Chris
Riopelle replied he had never heard that story; the version he knew was
that Mastbaum was walking down a Paris street when he saw a cast of a
Rodin hand in a store window.
In June 2000, the Museum reopened with an extensive Rodin exhibition
(pieces partly on loan from the Musée Rodin, Paris) after an
eight-month renovation closure.
Some major Rodin exhibitions:
The
Hands of Rodin, a Tribute to B. Gerald Cantor (March 27 through June
22, 1997). An exhibition of some 60 works in bronze and plaster,
comprised of loans from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation and
Collection and major US museum collections. (See also Brooklyn Museum,
New York and Travelling Cantor Collection Exhibitions for full
information)
Simultaneously, the Museum presented the
exhibition Rodin
and Michelangelo: A Study in Artistic Inspiration. The 236-page
catalogue examines Rodin´s career and his acknowledged debt to
Michelangelo (1475-1564). The texts discuss Rodin's early departures
from the idealized figures of traditional academic sculpture as well as
his 1876 visit to Italy. The exhibition was also presented in the Casa
Buonarroti, Florence.
For more background information read the cover
story by Daisy Fried for CityPaper.net.
Search the PMA Database
Some items:
The Age of Bronze, 1876-77, bronze, foundry
mark Alexis Rudier, H. 71 x W. 28 x D.
20"
(black patina)
The Gates of Hell, first bronze cast
The Thinker, H. 27", signed, marked Alexis
Rudier Fondeur (black patina)
Eternal Springtime, marble
The Sirens, ca. 1885, plaster cast, H. 19" and
a bronze cast, H. 17" (black patina)
The Martyr (from the Gates of Hell), bronze,
enlarged, foundry mark Alexis Rudier,
L. 62¼" (brown patina)
She who was.../The Old Courtesan, bronze,
foundry mark Alexis Rudier, H. 20"
(black patina)
Balzac dressed in Robe, version t, 1897, bronze,
H. 41¾" (green patina), foundry Mark
Alexis
Rudier [Spear pl. 45]
Mask of Hanako, 1908-11, plaster, H. 6½",
signed, plus a tinted pâte de verre
version,
H. 8¾" [Spear pl. 55]
John Tancock, Evan H. Turner (Introduction),
The
Sculpture of Auguste Rodin: The Collection of the Rodin Museum,
Philadelphia, 1975.
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