The Cantor Arts Center Explores Rodin's Influence on American Artists

Written by Ruth Chapman Wednesday, 16 November 2011 00:25

Stanford, CA.- The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University is proud to present “Rodin and America: Influence and Adaptation 1876–1936”, on view at the museum from October 5th through January 1st 2012. This exhibition includes 132 works which demonstrate the influence that French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) had on a generation of American artists. “From the 1890s until his death, Rodin was probably the most famous artist in the Western world,” said Bernard Barryte, the Cantor Arts Center’s curator of European art.  “His notoriety made him a focus of adulation and emulation, and for decades he exerted a profound influence on American art.”  Exploring Rodin’s influence, the exhibition and the accompanying catalogue examine works in all media by American artists who responded to Rodin, assimilating, transforming, and finally rejecting ideas that they discovered in his sculptures and drawings. To illustrate the scope and character of this American response, “Rodin and America” features 107 sculptures, drawings, paintings, and photographs by 42 artists from 44 museums, foundations, and private collections throughout the United States. The exhibition also features 25 of Rodin’s works in bronze, plaster, marble, and watercolor.

“Rodin and America” explores the sculptor’s impact on artists in a systematic and comprehensive fashion. Barryte explains, “The broad scope of the investigation is dictated by the fact that nearly every American artist of this 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.” As works by these artists attest, within a decade of the French sculptor’s death, this crucial, first modernist phase in the development of American art was overshadowed by the trend toward abstraction and other 20th-century movements. As a result, “Rodin and America” is also an act of rediscovery. The selection of objects highlights an exciting but relatively neglected phase in the history of American art and reacquaints viewers with once renowned masters such as Malvina Hoffman, Lorado Taft, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Equally important, it provides new perspectives on works by such innovators as Charles Demuth and photographers Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz. The works by Rodin represent acquisitions made by prescient collectors in Boston, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco who first contributed to the spread of Rodin’s influence. These works exemplify the qualities most admired by young American artists—dynamic form, emotional richness, sensuality, complex surfaces, and the fully realized partial figure. “Rodin and America: Influence and Adaptation 1876–1936” is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring essays by eight scholars who examine aspects of the American response to and reaction against Rodin’s dominating presence.

The Cantor Arts Center boasts a proud and venerable history, as it was conceived of in tandem with the founding of Stanford University itself. The Stanford family, including Leland Jr., traveled the world collecting objects of art and cultural interest. The museum was originally created to make this collection available to students and the public. It has withstood natural disasters and periodic neglect, only to be resurrected, renewed, and expanded, with its collections stronger than ever, thanks to the passionate dedication of Stanford faculty and staff, and art lovers in the surrounding community. One of the highlights of Cantor Arts Center is the Rodin sculpture garden, which contains 20 bronzes. Among them are the famous "Gates of Hell", "Adam, Eve", "The Three Shades", and "The Thinker". "The Burghers of Calais" is displayed in the Stanford Main Quad. In total, the Cantors donated 187 of Rodin's works, making Stanford University the third largest Rodin collection in the world after the Musée Rodin in Paris and the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, PA. The Papua New Guinea sculpture garden, southwest of the Stanford Main Quad, presents 40 works, unique examples of the striking traditional Visual Arts of Papua New Guinea. The Cantor Arts Center's other outdoor collection includes 35 other 19th- to 21st-century sculptures sited around campus. "Stone River," created in 2001 by British artist Andy Goldsworthy, can be found in front of the historic museum building, sited slightly below-grade in a small grove beyond visitor parking. A campus sculpture map is available. The museum also contains a cafe, Cafe Cool, and a Bookshop. Visit the museum's website at ... http://museum.stanford.edu

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