A new exhibition at the Bourdelle Museum very close to our hotels focuses on the similitudes, homages and differences between sculptors Bourdelle and Rodin through 160 exhibits, 60 of which have been lent specially by the Rodin Museum (also close to our hotels!)

Antoine Bourdelle’s admiration for Auguste Rodin, who was 20 years older than him, is well documented. Indeed, the former worked for the latter for fifteen years, pre-cutting his marble, and the two men exchanged both sculptures and drawings.

For this first large-scale exhibition on the subject, you’ll discover the admiration and antagonism in their relationship, with a presentation designed much like a six-dish tasting menu:

— Section 1 | The sould of the material
— Interlude | Rodin and Bourdelle the collectors – elective affinities
—Section 2 | The aesthetics of fragments
— Section 3 | The monument(al)
— Section 4 | Metamorphoses and hybridisations
— Epilogue | Walking men – an exploration of the upright human figure in the work of Bourdelle, Rodin, Matisse, Brancusi, Zadkine, Giacometti…

In addition to the 60 works loaned by the Rodin Museum, the exhibition has important loans from the Pompidou Centre, the Petit Palais, the Musée d’Orsay, Balzac’s house and the Fine Art museums of Paris, Lyon and Rouen, to mention only a few.

At the start of the exhibition you’ll find animated graphics that tell of the two artists’ shared history, followed by an interactive, tactile, narrative game spread over the first half of the event, in which you’ll be charged with chiseling a bust in the same way Bourdelle did for Rodin over the course of fifteen years.

And special care has been taken with child visitors. There are thirteen information points for works placed lower, forming a trail they call “Keep an eye out”.

Linked with the exhibition there are:

— guided visits, one of which is in French sign language and another theatrically staged with actress Natalie Hanrion of the Compagnie In Cauda,

— an inaugural conference with the scientific curators of the exhibition Jérôme Godeau and Colin Lemoine,

— a night of readings on 23rd January 2025,

— several sculpture workshops…

A catalogue of the exhibition (272 pages, around 42€) is also available here from your local Amazon.

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The exhibition Rodin / Bourdelle – Corps à corps (Body to Body) is at the Bourdelle Museum (here) until 2nd February 2025

Open every day except Mondays from 10am-6pm

Closed 25th December & 1st January

Admission: 10€ / 8€

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