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“The Thinker” Returns to Stanford and More

The University of Laverne’s Harris Art Gallery is hosting a superb small show of Rodin sculpture. Organized by the Foundation and comprised of works from the collections of both the Foundation and Iris Cantor, the exhibition of 25 Rodin bronzes and two bronze portrait busts of Rodin may be seen at this Southern California university until March 29.  Foundation Executive Director Judith Sobol gave a private gallery tour for University VIPs prior to the opening, and reports she is impressed by the exhibition’s beautiful installation – kudos to Gallery Director Dion Johnson! – and cogent small catalogue with its essay by University art historian Jon Leaver.

The Brooklyn Museum of Art has opened a fascinating exhibition of sculpture by Rachel Kneebone – and by Auguste Rodin.  The London-based artist’s large-scale porcelain human forms are paired with 15 iconic Rodins selected by her from the Museum’s collection, all gifts from the Cantor Foundation and Iris and Bernie Cantor.  The show, Rachel Kneebone: Regarding Rodin, is at the Museum’s Sackler Center for Feminist Art until August 12.  Kneebone’s work, described as her most ambitious to date, shares with Rodin’s work, inspiration, emotion and “figures coping with their fates in different ways,” according to Rachel Wolff in The Wall Street Journal.  Very worth a visit.

Also, in January, The Thinker, Rodin’s monumental personification of the very act of thinking and one of the most famous works of art in the world, made its way back to the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Art from the North Carolina Museum of Art.  The piece had been on loan to North Carolina for two years, celebrating the Museum’s opening of its new building and its new Rodin collection, gift of the Cantor Foundation. In 1988 The Thinker was a partial and promised gift to Stanford’s Cantor Center from the Foundation.  The Cantor Center has one of the largest collections of Rodin in the world, most of it Cantor Foundation gifts.  And this cast of  The Thinker, at one ton and more than 6 feet tall, is unquestionably difficult to transport and install, requiring gantries, chains, and many strong and careful individuals.  We congratulate them all.

Finally, a report on one of our favorite Cantor Fellows:  Dr. Kenneth Wayne has recently been named Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York.