754. Camille Claudel (1864-1943), French,

Auguste Rodin, 1888. Bronze,

40.7 x 25.7 x 28 cm. Private collection.

 

 

Camille Claudel

(1864 Fère-en-Tardenois – 1943 Villeneuve-les-Avignon)

 

It is still hard to separate the achievements of Camille Claudel from that of her lover and mentor Auguste Rodin. Both as a model and as an assistant she helped to create many of his masterpieces. It is even possible that he appropriated some of her own creative ideas. Like many artists who worked with him it was difficult for her to escape from his giant shadow. However suggestions that she was exploited by him have certainly been exaggerated, and she worked throughout her career in a style that was essentially created by Rodin. Claudel’s earliest teacher was Alfred Boucher and her skills as a sculptor were well-developed before she met Rodin in the early 1880s. Claudel’s intense creative and personal relationship with Rodin lasted until 1898 but eventually foundered upon the fact that he refused to abandon his older mistress Rose Beuron and commit himself to Claudel. Her bitterness was expressed in the transparently autobiographical three-figure group entitled The Age of Maturity. Rodin continued to offer what support he could to Claudel’s career after the end of their affair. Her deteriorating mental health and the death of her father enabled her brother, the Catholic writer Paul Claudel, to have her placed in an asylum in 1913. She remained institutionalised for the rest of her life.