Camille Claudel: Art, Love, and the Battle for Independence

Camille Claudel was among the most daring and visionary sculptors of the late nineteenth century. Although infamous today for her tumultuous life—her affair with Auguste Rodin, her internment for thirty years in a psychiatric institution—her art remains little known outside France, and merely nine works by the artist are currently held in American museums. This lecture traces Claudel’s trailblazing career as a woman artist, her passionate sculpted forms, and her complex relationship with Rodin. It also serves as an introduction to the Art Institute’s upcoming retrospective of the artist’s work (Fall 2023).

Lecture conducted in English.

Emerson Bowyer is Searle Curator, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, at the Art Institute of Chicago. A specialist in 18th- and 19th-century French and British art, he has previously worked at the Frick Collection, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His exhibitions include David d’Angers: Making the Modern Monument (Frick Collection, 2013), Luminous Worlds: British Works on Paper 1760-1900 (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2015), and Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (Met Breuer, 2018). Emerson is currently working on two exhibitions, on Antonio Canova’s clay sketches and the sculpture of Camille Claudel.

*Free Admission for students with IDs on-site / .edu addresses online. High school, college, or university.