Originally commissioned for the Panthéon in Paris, Rodin’s never-realized Monument to Victor Hugo was of great personal significance to the artist because – like his contemporaries – he idolized Hugo for his literary and political achievements. Although a plaster of the monument was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1897, it was never cast in bronze during Rodin’s lifetime. The cast in this exhibition was the second made and the first accessible to audiences in the United States. The exhibition included studies for other versions of the monument, studies that led to its final design. There were also related works that Rodin had presented as independent figures and portrait studies of Victor Hugo. There were four works on paper and twenty pieces of sculpture, including works in marble, bronze, plaster and terra-cotta. The exhibition included artworks borrowed from the Musée Rodin, Paris, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, the Rodin Museum at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the College of the Holy Cross.

This beautiful exhibition visited five museums:

Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles, California
December 17, 1998 – March 15, 1999

Portland Art Museum
Portland, Oregon
April 13 – June 11, 1999

Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens
Jacksonville, Florida
July 7 – September 19, 1999

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, New York
October 6 – January 2, 2000

Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
Stanford University
Stanford, California
January 26 – March 26, 2000