Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is widely regarded as the founder of modern sculpture and one of the most important artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His work comments on the full spectrum of human emotion, portraying strength, beauty, vulnerability, and anguish with equal power. Breaking away from the idealistic traditions of academic sculpture, Rodin took a fundamentally realistic approach, creating pieces that emphasized detailed human emotion through the physical expression of the body itself. Over the course of five decades of sustained work he produced sculptures that transformed the discipline and shaped the direction of European art for generations to come.

Born in Paris, Rodin attended the Petite École, where he studied drawing and painting during his formative years. He applied three times to the École des Beaux-Arts, the most prestigious French art academy, and was rejected each time, a formative early disappointment that would push him along an unconventional artistic path. He nonetheless pursued his sculptural training with unusual persistence, studying with the animal sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye at the Museum of Natural History, where Barye's meticulously observed animal figures profoundly shaped Rodin's own understanding of anatomy and expressive form. For nearly two decades Rodin supported himself by producing decorative objects and architectural sculpture, working long hours in the studios of others while gradually developing his own personal voice.

Rodin's mature career finally took shape in the 1870s and 1880s, and his ambitious independent sculptures earned him growing recognition and, eventually, international fame. His major works include The Thinker, The Kiss, The Gates of Hell, The Burghers of Calais, and his controversial monument to Balzac, along with hundreds of smaller figures, portrait busts, and drawings that collectively constitute one of the most substantial bodies of work in the history of sculpture. His willingness to leave passages of unfinished stone visible around emerging figures, his psychologically charged handling of the human body, and his commitment to representing genuine human experience rather than idealized form all opened new possibilities for the discipline.

Rodin worked from his studios in Paris and at his beloved Villa des Brillants in Meudon, where he lived with his longtime companion and eventual wife Rose Beuret. His paintings, drawings, and sculptures are held today in the Musée Rodin in Paris and in every major international museum.