Auguste Rodin

12 November 1840 – 17 November 1917

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. Departing from academic idealism, he modeled the human body with unprecedented naturalism and emotional force in works such as The Thinker, The Kiss, and The Burghers of Calais.

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Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Auguste Rodin.

Life events

Born in Paris, France
12 November 1840

François Auguste René Rodin was born into a working-class family in Paris.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Studied drawing at the Petite École in Paris
1854 – 1857

Rodin trained in drawing and modeling at the École Spéciale de Dessin et de Mathématiques, having been rejected three times by the École des Beaux-Arts.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Began lifelong relationship with Rose Beuret
1864

Rodin met the seamstress Rose Beuret, who became his lifelong companion and the mother of his son Auguste-Eugène.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Exhibited The Age of Bronze
1877

Rodin's life-size male nude was so realistic that he was accused of casting it from a living model, a controversy that brought him fame.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Received the commission for The Gates of Hell
1880

The French state commissioned Rodin to create a monumental bronze portal for a planned decorative arts museum, a project that occupied him for decades and spawned The Thinker and The Kiss.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Began working relationship and affair with Camille Claudel
c. 1883

The sculptor Camille Claudel became Rodin's student, collaborator, and lover in a turbulent relationship that lasted about a decade.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Completed The Burghers of Calais
1889

Rodin finished his monument commemorating the six citizens of Calais who offered their lives during the Hundred Years' War; it was unveiled in Calais in 1895.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Monument to Balzac rejected by its commissioners
1898

Rodin's radically unconventional plaster of Honoré de Balzac was refused by the Société des Gens de Lettres, becoming one of the era's great artistic controversies.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Married Rose Beuret
29 January 1917

After 53 years together, Rodin married Rose Beuret at Meudon; she died two weeks later.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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Died at Meudon, France
17 November 1917

Rodin died at his villa in Meudon at age 77; his estate and works were left to the French state, forming the Musée Rodin.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
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