Cantor Arts Center Showcases Rodin

Works of 42 American artists who were profoundly influenced by 19th century French sculptor Auguste Rodin went on display at the this Wednesday. There are also 25 works from Rodin himself in bronze, marble, plaster and watercolor in the exhibit.

Although Rodin is a “staple” at Stanford and at the Palace of the Legion of Honor and much has been written about his life, art practices, and his loves, there’s not much about his influence as a "hero" early on, said museum director Tom Seligman.

Seligman said that the exhibit had been in the works for a while and includes pieces that are “very surprising and unexpected." When he was alive, Rodin was likely the most famous artist in the Western world, said Bernard Barryte, the museum’s curator of European art.

“His notoriety made him a focus of adulation and emulation," he said. "American artists were bold and creative responding to Rodin."

Rodin was largely ignored as a pre-modernist after his death, because the development of American art was outshadowed by a trend toward abstraction and other 20th-century movements. He was viewed as the ‘last Victorian’ rather than a forerunner of modernism, said Barryte. The Museum of Modern Art in New York didn’t even get a Rodin work until more than 20 years after his death.

The exhibit contains examples of various media such as sculpture, paintings and photography, it is organized thematically inseven sections corresponding to the distinctive characteristics of Rodin’s work that artists found most compelling. One of these is called the "Engaged Figure Non Finito," a work of art that is deliberately left in what looks like an unfinished state.

Barryte pointed out that “nearly every American artist of the period had, at minimum, a Rodin ‘moment’ and this includes such luminaries as Georgia O’Keeffe, Gaston Lachaise and John Storrs, who became famous for accomplishments made when they passed beyond Rodin’s influence.”

The exhibit runs through January 1, 2012. The Cantor Arts Center is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Thursdays until 8 pm. Admission is free.