“just a simple piece of sculpture without reference to subject”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
Figure timeline
Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin was a French sculptor generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a unique ability to model a complex, turbulent, and deeply pocketed surface in clay. He is known for such sculptures as The Thinker, Monument to Balzac, The Kiss, The Burghers of Calais, and The Gates o…
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
culture · French sculptor (1840–1917) · sculptor · graphic artist · draftsperson · photographer · painter · printmaker · visual artist · also Auguste Rodin, Rodan, Ogi︠u︡st Roden, François Auguste René Rodin, René François Auguste Rodin, august rodin
Born 12 November 1840 · Died 17 November 1917 · Q30755
61 published statements · 0 followers
See & hear
Photos & media
14 photos
Media from Wikimedia Commons, hotlinked at the source under its own licence — see each file for author and terms.
Live now
In the news
Pulling headlines from trusted outlets — this usually takes a few seconds
Checking the wires…
Feed scan
These are live links, not archived citations — they only join the timeline once a collect run verifies and archives them.
Live pulse
Recent highlights
Most recent outstanding titles, awards, and quotes
- Quote
- Quote
2026· 3 entries
“It is Michelangelo who has freed me from academic sculpture.”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
The New York Times: Michelangelo and Rodin: Finding the Living Spirit in Stone
- #news
- #headline
2024· 2 entries
Yahoo: Auguste Rodin, Goliath Head International Challenge For Japan Cup
- #news
- #headline
Yahoo! Sports: Auguste Rodin sculpts win to remember in Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot
- #news
- #headline
2023· 1 entry
The Mirror: Auguste Rodin starting on Triple Crown trail as favourite for 2,000 Guineas
- #news
- #headline
2022· 2 entries
RTE Online: Auguste Rodin
- #news
- #headline
The Blood-Horse: Auguste Rodin Heads Field for Vertem Futurity
- #news
- #headline
2012· 1 entry
From the collection of Cornelius Gurlitt
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1999· 1 entry
And Rodin's bronze Ève, grand modele – version sans rocher sold for $18
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1943· 1 entry
Despite numerous attempts by doctors to explain to her mother and brother that she was sane
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1939· 1 entry
Was Monument to Balzac cast in bronze and placed on the Boulevard du Montparnasse at the intersection with Boulevard Raspail
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1923· 1 entry
Marcell Tirel, Rodin's secretary, published a book alleging that Rodin's death was largely due to cold, and the fact that he had no heat at Meudon
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1917· 6 entries
Died 1917-11-17.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #death
“O espírito esboça, mas é o coração que modela.”
- #wikiquote
- #saying
- #undated
- #lang:pt
But within a few decades his legacy solidified
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
To designs by Cass Gilbert, was named after Rodin
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
“Nobody does good to men with impunity.”
- #wikiquote
- #saying
- #undated
- #lang:en
“To produce good sculpture it is not necessary to copy the works of antiquity; it is necessary first of all to regard the works of nature, and to see in those of the classics only the method by which they have interpreted nature.”
- #wikiquote
- #saying
- #undated
- #lang:en
1916· 1 entry
And opened in 1919 at the Hôtel Biron, where Rodin had lived, and it holds the largest Rodin collection, with more than 6,000 sculptures and 7,000 works on paper
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1910· 1 entry
Awarded Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour (1910).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1909· 1 entry
Expressed that "there is some show of reason in the complaint that [Rodin's] conceptions are sometimes unsuited to his medium, and that in such cases they overstrain his vast technical powers"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1908· 1 entry
Renting the main floor of the Hôtel Biron, an 18th-century townhouse
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1907· 1 entry
Awarded Honorary doctor of the University of Oxford (1907).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1906· 2 entries
Awarded honorary doctorate of the University of Glasgow (1906).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
But the two men parted company after Christmas, "to their mutual relief"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1905· 2 entries
Awarded honorary doctor of the University of Jena (1905).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
And 1906 and did administrative work for him; he would later write a laudatory monograph on the sculptor
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1904· 1 entry
Rodin was introduced to the Welsh artist, Gwen John, who modelled for him and became his lover after being introduced by Hilda Flodin
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1903· 2 entries
Awarded Commander of the Legion of Honour (1903).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
Rodin was elected president of the International Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1902· 1 entry
That in its complete isolation, there was "a striking analogy between its situation and the personality of the man who lives in it"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1900· 1 entry
Attempted to seduce her, and the next year sketched studies of her and her students
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1898· 1 entry
The negative reaction was not surprising
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1897· 1 entry
Was a host to such guests as King Edward VII, dancer Isadora Duncan, and harpsichordist Wanda Landowska
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1895· 1 entry
Calais succeeded in having Burghers displayed in their preferred form: the work was placed in front of a public garden on a high platform, surrounded by a cast-iron railing
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1893· 2 entries
And Rodin continued their warm friendship and correspondence, which lasted to the end of the sculptor's life
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
“I think of how much you must have loved me to put up with my caprices...I remain, in all tenderness, your Rodin.”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
1892· 1 entry
Awarded Officer of the Legion of Honour (1892).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1891· 1 entry
And Rodin spent years developing the concept for his sculpture
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1890· 1 entry
Rodin served as the body's vice-president
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1889· 3 entries
The Burghers of Calais was first displayed to general acclaim
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Rodin dealt extensively with the subject of artist and muse
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
The Paris Salon invited Rodin to be a judge on its artistic jury
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1887· 1 entry
Awarded Knight of the Legion of Honour (1887).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1884· 1 entry
Inspired by the chronicles of the siege by Jean Froissart
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1883· 1 entry
Rodin agreed to supervise a course for sculptor Alfred Boucher in his absence, where he met the 18-year-old Camille Claudel
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1881· 1 entry
Where his friend, the artist Alphonse Legros, had introduced him to the poet William Ernest Henley
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1880· 2 entries
Rodin submitted the sculpture to the Paris Salon
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Carrier-Belleuse – then art director of the Sèvres national porcelain factory – offered Rodin a part-time position as a designer
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1877· 2 entries
Moving into a small flat on the Left Bank
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
The work debuted in Brussels and then was shown at the Paris Salon
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1875· 1 entry
Where he was drawn to the work of Donatello and Michelangelo
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1864· 2 entries
Rodin began to live with a young seamstress named Rose Beuret (born in June 1844), with whom he stayed for the rest of his life, with varying commitment
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Rodin submitted his first sculpture for exhibition, The Man with the Broken Nose, to the Paris Salon
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1863· 1 entry
Before he left the order, Rodin produced his first clearly datable work, a bust of Eymard, in thanks for the priest's counsel and support
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1862· 1 entry
And Rodin was anguished with guilt because he had introduced her to an unfaithful suitor
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1860· 1 entry
And he produced at least 56 portraits between 1877 and his death in 1917
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1857· 2 entries
Rodin submitted a clay model of a companion to the École des Beaux-Arts in an attempt to win entrance; he did not succeed, and two further applications were also denied
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
And earned a living as a craftsman and ornamenter for most of the next two decades, producing decorative objects and architectural embellishments
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1840· 1 entry
Born 1840-11-12.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #birth