Major Rodin exhibition coming to the High Museum this fall

A major exhibition of the work of iconic French sculptor Auguste Rodin is coming to the High Museum of Art this fall.

“Rodin in the United States: Confronting the Modern” — on view at the High from Oct. 21 to Jan. 15, 2023 — follows the artist’s rise to eminence in America due in large part to the collectors, critics, and curators who helped make it happen.

The exhibition will feature 70 works, including “The Thinker,” “The Kiss,” “Bust of Saint John the Baptist,” bust of “Katherine Seney Simpson (Mrs. John W. Simpson),” and “Monument to Balzac” on loan from galleries from around the country.

“Though now holding pride of place in major American museum collections, and renowned for its distinctive aesthetic, it’s perhaps only in the last 40 years that Rodin’s work has become recognized as among the greatest achievements in Modern art,” said Rand Suffolk, the Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr. director of the High. “This exhibition takes the audience on a journey, as Rodin’s reputation builds, declines and rises again. It’s a fascinating story, illustrated by many of Rodin’s most striking and beautiful works.” 

Rodin first gained significant attention in the United States in 1893, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art made the first acquisition of his artwork by an American institution. That same year, he made his controversial debut at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition with three marble sculptures, which were quickly judged too provocative and moved to a private space that was only accessible by request. As the exposition progressed, however, the censorship propelled public interest in his work. 

This notoriety sparked an early-20th-century collecting frenzy, promoted by noted philanthropist Katherine Seney Simpson, avant-garde performer Loïe Fuller, and collector Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, among others. The exhibition details the intriguing confluence of these Rodin enthusiasts and the roles they played in generating interest in his art. 

Get tickets and more information at this link.