The Rodin Museum

Jules E. Mastbaum, Philadelphia's great movie theater magnate and one of its best-known philanthropists, began collecting works by Auguste Rodin in 1923 with the expressed intent of founding a museum to enrich the lives of his fellow citizens. He set about assembling a complete view of Rodin's work, acquiring not only finished bronzes, but plaster studies as well as drawings, prints, letters, and books. By the time of his death in 1926, Mastbaum had brought together the greatest Rodin collection outside of Paris. He had also commissioned two great French Neoclassical architects working in Philadelphia, Paul Cret and by Jacques Gréber, to collaborate on a museum and garden, but did not live to see it completed.

The Rodin Museum, which opened to the public in 1929, houses 124 sculptures, including bronze casts of the artist's greatest works: The Thinker, perhaps the most famous sculpture in the world; The Burghers of Calais, his most heroic and moving historical tribute; Eternal Springtime, one of the most powerful works dealing with human love; powerful monuments to leading French intellectuals such as Apotheosis of Victor Hugo; and the culminating creation of his career, The Gates of Hell, on which the artist worked from 1880 until his death in 1917.

About the Museum's Garden

Over 60,000 visitors annually make the trip to see this spectacular Museum and the gardens which surround it. Designed by Jacques Gréber as part of the Museum's overall plan, the Rodin Gardens have remained a calm respite from the clatter of the city, even as the Parkway has changed over the years.

As Rodin himself knew, the appreciation of works of art is heightened by nature—and that is the goal of the Rodin Gardens. The reflecting pool in the garden courtyard evokes calm and echoes the cool beauty that the visitor will experience within the building.

About Auguste Rodin

It would be impossible to overstate the significance of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) to the history of art. More than any other sculptor since Michelangelo, Rodin changed the face of figurative sculpture and ushered in a whole new era of artistic expression. Many know Rodin for his famous controversies—the scandal around the Age of Bronze or the Monument to Honoré de Balzac—or for his unfinished projects, most famously The Gates of Hell. But few who recognize Rodin’s works have failed to be moved by them. The innovations he introduced into sculpture were elaborated by countless artists who followed him, including many who worked in his studio, such as Constantin Brancusi and Aristide Maillol.

Rodin was not educated at the École des Beaux-Arts, the most elevated school for the training of French artists, but his works achieved worldwide recognition in his own lifetime and his reputation continues to grow to this day. His genius was to express the inner truths of the human psyche and his gaze penetrated beneath the external appearance of the world. Exploring this realm beneath the surface, Rodin developed an agile technique for rendering extreme physical states which correspond to expressions of inner turmoil or overwhelming joy. Rodin was obsessed with myths, both ancient and modern, and his works commonly evoke classical mythology, the Bible, and the Divine Comedy of Dante, as well as the macabre modern Paris described in the poems of Charles Baudelaire. Deriving inspiration from such literary sources, Rodin sculpted a universe of great passion and tragedy, a world of imagination that exceeded the mundane reality of everyday existence.

Technically, Rodin introduced some very important innovations to the history of sculpture. His ability to make his figures lifelike caused him to be accused of modeling his sculptures directly from live subjects. The heightened expressive intensity of his works introduced a whole generation of artists to the potential for expressing internal depth through external features. In his Monument to Balzac, Rodin took his expressive technique to a new level, producing a figure of a great genius at the moment of his inspiration, wrapped in a cloak in the middle of the night. Though Rodin had made countless studies from life for this monument, he discarded these renderings in order to marry the expressive intensity of his modeling with the brilliance of the subject. This parallel between technique and subject, combined with the courage to throw away years of work in order to achieve a higher level of expression, mark Rodin as a unique and powerful artist.

For more information, please contact the Rodin Museum at (215) 568-6026.

Rodin Museum
Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 22nd Street
P.O. Box 7646
Philadelphia, PA 19101-7646

Driving Directions to the Museum
Directions to the Rodin Museum from Mapquest.

Hours
Tuesday through Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Closed Mondays and holidays.
(Hours subject to change.)

Admission
A contribution of $5 per person is suggested.

Free Public Tours
Free guided tours of the Rodin Museum are given to the public at 1:30 p.m. every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and on the first and third Saturdays of the month. Visitors should gather in the Main Entrance Hall. Please note: Tours are free after the suggested $3 admission donation.

Facilities
Wheelchair entrance, restrooms, and the Rodin Shop.

Accessibility
Parking and barrier-free access available. Listening enhancement system, touch tours, Braille and large-print materials available upon advance request by calling (215) 684-7602. TTY for Deaf and hearing impaired callers, (215) 684-7600.

Photography
Visitors are welcome to use hand-held cameras. Flash, strobe, and tripods are not permitted.