Past Exhibitions: Rodin's Monument to Victor Hugo Originally commissioned as a tributary sculpture for the Panthéon in Paris, Rodin's never-realized Monument to Victor Hugo was of great personal significance to him, who like his contemporaries, idolized Hugo for his literary and political achievements. Although a plaster version of the monument was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1897, it was never cast in bronze during Rodin's lifetime. The cast of the monument presented in this exhibition is the second to be made and the first to be made accessible to an audience in the United States. The exhibition included studies of other versions of the monument that led to its design, related works that Rodin presented as independent figures, and portrait studies of Victor Hugo. There were four works on paper and twenty works of sculpture including works in marble, bronze, plaster and terra-cotta loaned to the exhibition from the Musée Rodin, Paris. Other lenders to the exhibition included the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, the Rodin Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts. Venues: Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts Stanford University Stanford, California January 26 - March 26, 2000   The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, New York October 6 - January 2, 2000   Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens Jacksonville, Florida July 7 - September 19, 1999   Portland Art Museum Portland, Oregon April 13 - June 11, 1999   Los Angeles County Museum of Art Los Angeles, California December 17, 1998 - March 15, 1999 Monument to Victor Hugo large model incomplete 1897 definitive model completed shortly after 1900 Visit the Virtual Gallery Rodin at Rockefeller Center: Sculpture from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collection June 17 - August 31, 1998 Rarely viewed outside of a museum environment, Rodin at Rockefeller Center provided a unique opportunity to experience the artist's monumental sculpture seen against the spectacular backdrop of Rockefeller Center. The exhibition consisted of eight bronzes that exemplified Rodin's revolutionary approach to the human figure. Beginning on Fifth Avenue with The Three Shades, visitors to Rodin at Rockefeller Center were invited along the Channel Gardens, beautifully landscaped in the tradition of a French formal garden, similar to that of Rodin's time, to a central grove that provided an intimate setting to view figures from the Burghers of Calais, alongside Whistler's Muse, Meditation and Monumental Torso of the Walking Man. The Thinker, one of the most celebrated sculptures of all time and perhaps Rodin's greatest triumph, capped the exhibition at the western end of the promenade overlooking the Center's Festival Cafe. The Three Shades, 1881-86 Photograph by Andrew Moore Since 1932, art has been an integral part of Rockefeller Center. With well over 100 works, by more than 30 artists, Rockefeller Center houses one of the most fascinating permanent public art collections in New York City. The project was facilitated by the Public Art Fund, which brings exceptional works of art out of the traditional context of museums and galleries and into the public realm, creating popular and engaging exhibitions in prestigious public spaces in New York City. The Hands of Rodin: A Tribute to B. Gerald Cantor Dedicated to the memory of B. Gerald Cantor (1916-1996), The Hands of Rodin explored Rodin's fascination with the diverse forms of hands and their expressive capabilities, both as independent sculptures and as components to a larger whole. The exhibition featured a selection of about fifty sculptures demonstrating Rodin's mastery of portraying the lines of the human hand while communicating their strength, movement and expression. Often when Rodin composed a new figure he experimented by attaching different hands at varying angles to explore the possibilities that each combination might reveal. This working method encouraged Rodin's interest in the fragment, and he championed the idea that pure forms, such as that of the hand, are not necessarily dependent upon a larger whole to convey meaning. Rodin proved that the hand could convey a profound amount of emotion through the careful modeling of their musculature, proportion, texture and balance. Rodin infused them with a range of emotions— from anger and despair to compassion and tenderness. Mr. Cantor shared Rodin's fascination with the human hand and continued to add them to his collection throughout his lifetime. The very first Rodin Mr. Cantor purchased was The Hand of God, a highly symbolic work that uses the hand to represent the creator of man and woman. Venues: Los Angeles County Museum of Art Los Angeles, California December 12, 1996 - March 2, 1997   Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia, Pennsylvania March 27 - June 22, 1997   Brooklyn Museum of Art Brooklyn, New York July 18 - September 28, 1997   Museum of Art Brigham Young University Provo, Utah October 24, 1997 - January 24, 1998   Arkansas Art Center Little Rock, Arkansas February 13 - May 17, 1998   Portland Art Museum Portland, Oregon June 1, 1998 - August 31, 1998   The Cathedral, 1908 Photograph by Steve Oliver Read "Bernie's Magnificent Obsession" A Tribute to B. Gerald Cantor by Milton Esterow, Editor and Publisher, ARTnews   Rodin's Obsession: The Gates of Hell, Selections from the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation  The Gates of Hell (1880-about 1900) was Rodin's most ambitious commission. Originally conceived as the entrance portal for a never-realized museum of decorative arts in Paris, The Gates features hundreds of figures modeled in high relief and in-the-round. The imagery in The Gates was inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy (about 1307), an imaginary tale of a journey through Hell and Purgatory to Paradise, and by Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), a volume of poetry that examined complex, often morbid emotional states. The visual model for Rodin's Gates was the long-standing tradition of decorative, compartmentalized church portals, specifically the Florence Baptistery doors (1425-52) designed by the Italian Renaissance artist Lorenzo Ghiberti. However, Rodin abandoned the formal structure of traditional doors, creating an environment of tormented souls in which figures float and weave in a surging arrangement representing the suffering of mankind. Beginning in the 1880s, Rodin exhibited many of the figures from The Gates of Hell  independently as freestanding sculptures. Among the most well known are The Thinker (1880) and TheThree Shades (1880-1904). This exhibition featured maquettes for The Gates , as well as scores of bronzes derived from the doors that had become independent pieces.      Venues: Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art Pepperdine University, Malibu, California  January 20, 2001 - March 25, 2001   Newcomb Art Gallery  Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana  April 12, 2001 - June 15, 2001   Las Vegas Art Museum Las Vegas, Nevada July 12, 2001 - September 16,  2001   Emily Lowe Gallery  Hofstra University, Hampstead, New York October 2, 2001 - December 14, 2001   Frederick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park  Grand Rapids, Michigan January 11, 2002 - March 3, 2002   Yellowstone Art Museum Billings, Montana  March 23, 2002 - June 2, 2002   Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art  Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas June 15, 2002 - August 25, 2002   Ball State University Museum of Art Muncie, Indiana September 15, 2002 - December 11, 2002   Palmer Museum of Art Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania  January 14, 2003 - June 1, 2003   Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts   June 20, 2003 - August 29, 2003   Saginaw Art Museum Saginaw, Michigan  September 20, 2003 - November 30, 2003

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