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Rodin: Sculpture from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collection
September 24 - December 31, 2000

Rodin is an ambitious special exhibition in honor of one of the greatest names in all of art history. It surveys the tumultuous career of that 19th-century French sculptor with an incomparable display of 66 of his bronzes. The works have been selected from the Los Angeles foundation of Iris and B. Gerald Cantor, who by the time of Mr. Cantor's death in 1996, had built the largest and most comprehensive private holding of Rodin's sculpture in the world.

The object of the Cantors' collecting passion, Auguste Rodin was an extraordinary original, a protean genius who turned his back on artistic convention and in a series of increasingly controversial monuments - The Gates of Hell, The Burghers of Calais, his monuments to Victor Hugo and Balzac. His work transformed forever the art of sculpture. By the time of his death in 1917, he was hailed as the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo.

The exhibition charts the full course of Rodin's career, beginning with his first major sculptural achievement, The Gates of Hell. Rodin commenced work on the pair of colossal bronze doors in 1880 and labored over them for the next twenty years. The commission inspired some of his most memorable works, including The Thinker, The Kiss, and The Three Shades, all of which are represented in the exhibition.

Agust Rodin The Thinker, 1880 (reduction 1898) Bronze, 14-3/4 x 7-7/8 x 11-3/8 inches Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation

Subsequent portions of the exhibition are devoted to The Burghers of Calais (1884-88) and The Monument to Balzac (1891-98), and a special gallery features the colossal bronze cast of The Monument to Victor Hugo (one of only two such casts in existence). The show also highlights Rodin's sculptures of hands, which he saw as poetic symbols of human expression and the creative act. Another section focuses on his sculptures of the human torso and other figurative fragments, which he presented as complete and independent works of art - a revolutionary concept at the time. The exhibition concludes with an elaborate installation devoted to the lost-wax casting process - the laborious, time-consuming casting method used by Rodin and his contemporaries to create a work in bronze.

Rodin: Sculpture from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collection is organized and made possible by the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation. Local presentation of the exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Business Exhibition Council of the Chrysler Museum of Art.

For More Information or Images Please Contact the Chrysler at (757) 664-6200 or museum@chrysler.org.

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