Rodin: A Biography

Grunfeld, Frederick V

ISBN 10: 1470846853 ISBN 13: 9781470846855

Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, 2013

Synopsis

[Read by Simon Vance]

Auguste Rodin was not only the greatest sculptor but also one of the most remarkable personalities of modern times. Frederic V. Grunfeld's exhaustive biography, the first in over fifty years, documents a lifetime of both artistic and personal struggle - against poverty, against the conservative Salon, and against an art establishment that for years denied him recognition.

Rodin's crucial love affair with his pupil, Camille Claudel, emerges here in all its tragic complexity, as do his relationships with the British painter Gwen John and the American-born duchess Claire de Choiseul. Grunfeld also sheds new light on Rodin's friendships with some of the most gifted writers and artists of the day, from Robert Louis Stevenson and George Bernard Shaw to Emile Zola and James McNeill Whistler.

About this title

About the Author:

FREDERICK V. GRUNFELD (1929-1987) was an author and journalist who spent three decades as a cultural correspondent in Europe. In addition to his biography on Rodin, he wrote The Art and Times of the Guitar, The Hitler File: A Social History of Germany and the Nazis, 1918-1945, and Prophets Without Honour: A Background to Freud, Kafka, Einstein and Their World.

From Library Journal:

Despite the rich subject matter of Rodin's life, there have been virtually no English-language biographical studies since the 1930s. Grunfeld's lively but uneven work updates information about Rodin's stormy romances, but is less thorough in studying the sculptor's relationships with influential political and literary figures, and seems to gloss over the effects of financial worries, relations with official salons, etc., on Rodin's artistic production. The book's racy who's who of fin-de-siecle French society make it a good addition for general collections; more reflective treatments will still be found in Robert Descharnes's August Rodin (Viking, 1967) and Albert Elsen's In Rodin's Studio (Cornell Univ. Pr., 1980). Paula A. Baxter, Museum of Modern Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1470846853
• ISBN 13: 9781470846855
• Binding: Audio CD