Known in France as a giant of modernist sculpture, to the rest of the world Camille Claudel is mainly remembered as Auguste Rodin’s lover. nikmatqq
Her tragic life, which included spending the last decades of her life in an asylum, has been immortalized on film by Isabelle Adjani opposite Gerard Depardieu in 1988’s Camille Claudel, and again by Juliette Binoche in 2013’s Camille Claudel 1915. A student, model, muse and lover to Rodin who blossomed into his rival, she produced artwork every bit as radical and expressive as his. And now — on view at the Getty through July 21 — is the first North American show in more than 30 years focusing solely on her work, including roughly 60 pieces.
The star of the show (seen first in the U.S. at the Art Institute of Chicago) is The Mature Age along with several iterations of her signature piece, The Waltz. Portraits in bronze or marble are plentiful too, a common genre for the few women sculptors of the time who might court controversy by working with professional nude models. Her spot-on likeness of Rodin is matched only by The Little Lady, a child rendered in marble. The Chatterboxes, in green onyx, depicts four women gossiping, conspiratorially leaning in. It is noteworthy in part for its female gaze — nude women not highlighted for their sensuous physicality but for their expressive engagement with one another. nikmatqq
The Waltz, rendered in a rapturous diagonal swoop, comprises a pair of dancers emerging from the rough-hewn swirls of a gown. “A lot of artists were pushing things to the extreme and the [government] was not always prepared. That was the case of The Waltz,” says Anne-Lise Desmas, senior curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the Getty Museum.
Conceived in plaster 1889, it took 16 years before The Waltz was cast in bronze. Working on a government commission, Claudel could not get them to commit to a marble reproduction. Along with The Age of Wisdom, it marks a break from her earlier works showing Rodin’s influence. “At the initial competition, she presented to a state art inspector two dancers being completely nude, and they wouldn’t accept that,” notes Desmas. “Then she said, okay and reworked everything with drapery. So, from criticism she was able to build on criticism to do something even better.”
Works from Rodin’s studio, where she toiled from the age of 19, include studies of different body parts, showing a delicate touch on difficult elements like hands and faces. Following an abortion in 1892, Claudel ended their relationship and, chafing under criticism that her work too closely resembled his, she embarked on small-scale sketches of nature and everyday life. Fireside Dream, made from alabaster and bronze, depicts a woman before a glowing fire, while Claudel also interpreted Hokusai’s woodblock print, The Great Wave (an influential Japanese work of the time), carving it from green onyx with bronze bathers. nikmatqq
