Rodin: The Human Experience, Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collections

In commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the death of sculptor Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917), the San Antonio Museum of Art presents Rodin: The Human Experience / Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collections. Featured in the exhibition are the artist's famous depictions of writers Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac; his monumental Torso of the Walking Man; works derived from his masterpiece, The Gates of Hell; and his portrayal of God—which is also a self-portrait.

The first truly modern sculptor, Rodin transformed sculptural form into expressions of emotion with exaggerated poses that broke with traditional notions that art told historical stories. Hallmarks of his revolutionary style include an affinity for partial figures, the representation of complex human feelings, and the visibility of marks of the sculptural process in his finished works.

Rodin: The Human Experience / Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collections showcases thirty-two large and small scale bronzes. Major sponsors of the Musée Rodin in Paris, the Cantors have helped preserve, restore, and cast numerous Rodin works, and the newly renovated Musée Rodin recently named a hall of the museum in their honor. For more than thirty-five years, the Cantor Foundation has made its Rodin collection—one of the largest outside the Musée Rodin in Paris—available to the public through its traveling exhibition program.