September 2011

North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC, Offers Extended Exhibit of Auguste Rodin Sculptures

Fast becoming one of the nation’s premier destinations for Rodin sculpture, the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC, will install 10 additional sculptures by the celebrated French artist in the Museum’s West Building. On loan from Iris Cantor’s private collection, the sculptures will go on display Sept. 2, 2011, alongside other works by Rodin in the Museum’s collection. Two of the works will be installed outdoors in the Rodin Garden and eight will be on view in the Rodin Court.

The majority of the works will be on view at the Museum for a minimum of two years; the marble Eve and the Final Study for the Monument to Balzac have been promised for at least six months.

David Steel, NCMA curator of European Art, who selected the loans, notes that the ten “represent some of Rodin’s most important and beautiful works,” and that they enhance and complement the 30 bronzes given to the Museum by the Cantor Foundation that were installed in the West Building on the occasion of the new building’s grand opening in April 2010.

“We are extremely grateful to Mrs. Cantor for continuing to share her world-renowned collection of Rodin with this Museum and the people of North Carolina,” said Lawrence J. Wheeler, director of the North Carolina Museum of Art. “Her generosity has placed the North Carolina Museum of Art among the best collections of Rodin sculpture in the United States.”

In making the loans, Iris Cantor, who during the years 1946-1996 with her late husband B. Gerald Cantor amassed the largest Rodin collection in private hands, acknowledged the continuing interest in making Rodin’s transformational sculpture available for the public to see.

Many of the treasures lent by Cantor directly relate to works already in the Museum’s Rodin collection. A rare marble sculpture of Eve and a monumental sized bronze of Eve, standing 68 inches tall, will join the Museum’s smaller Eve. The Cantor-owned Final Study for the Monument to Balzac complements the two studies for the same commission on view, and the Monumental Torso of the Falling Man will be installed near the NCMA’s The Falling Man and I Am Beautiful (Je suis belle).

Three of Rodin’s monumental Burghers of Calais - Eustache de St. Pierre, Vetu, Jean d’Aire Nude, and Pierre de Wissant, Vetu - will join the two large Burghers (one of them lent by Cantor) already on view, offering visitors a unique opportunity to see life-size versions of five of the six individual figures that comprise Rodin’s famous monument..

The remaining works on loan include Walking Man, a “descendant” of the Museum’s Egyptian Striding Figure; Torso of the Walking Man; and La France, Rodin’s portrait of his lover Camille Claudel, to be installed near the Museum’s bust of Rodin created by Claudel.

The exhibition of these ten works was made possible by First Citizens Bank.

The Museum is home to the largest collection of Rodin sculpture in the American South. Visitors can see the works for free among the Museum’s permanent collection in West Building.

The North Carolina Museum of Art’s permanent collection spans more than 5,000 years, from ancient Egypt to the present, making the institution one of the premier art museums in the Southeast. The Museum’s collection provides educational, aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural experiences for the citizens of North Carolina and beyond. The 164-acre Museum Park showcases the connection between art and nature through site-specific works of environmental art. The Museum offers changing national touring exhibitions, classes, lectures, family activities, films, and concerts.

The Museum recently opened its new gallery building, home to the permanent collection. It is the art museum of the State of North Carolina, Beverly Eaves Perdue, governor, and an agency of the Department of Cultural Resources, Linda A. Carlisle, secretary.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at 919/839-6262 or visit (www.ncartmuseum.org).

[ | September 2011 | Feature Articles | Carolina Arts Unleashed | Gallery Listings | Home | ]