Thematic tours of the collections

Camille Claudel became an assistant to Auguste Rodin while he was still working on The Gates of Hell, a commissioned work begun in 1880. While collaborating with Rodin, she managed to also pursue her own artistic production. The works focused on during this tour shed light on the years of close collaboration and the artistic connections between these two sculptors who first met in 1882 and had a passionate and complicated love affair. During this period, Camille Claudel sculpted the bust of Auguste Rodin, while the latter conjured the figure of Camille Claudel in several of his works, including France and Farewell. Finally, the tour lingers over a more intimate exploration of Camille Claudel’s The Mature Age; this work evokes the lovers’ separation, while also touching upon a theme dear to this artist: man’s fate.