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Biography of Camille ClaudelName: Camille ClaudelBirth Date: December 8, 1864 Death Date: October 19, 1943 Place of Birth: Fere-en-Tardenois, France Nationality: French Gender: Female Occupations: sculptor Camille Claudel The French sculptor Camille Claudel (1864-1943) was the muse, pupil, and lover of Auguste Rodin, as well as a major artist in her own right. She is perhaps better known for her tempestuous relationship with Rodin than for her moving works of art, many of which can be found at the Musee Rodin in Paris.After her breakup with Rodin in 1898, Claudel composed some of her best sculptures, yet she grew increasingly reclusive and paranoid. In 1913 her family committed her to an insane asylum, where she remained for the last 30 years of her life.Camille Claudel was the eldest of three children born to Louis-Prosper Claudel, a civil servant, and Louise-Athenaise Cervaux Claudel, a middle class country housewife on December 8, 1864 in Fere-en-Tardenois, France. The family moved occasionally as Louis-Prosper's work demanded, living for a time in the small town of Bar-le-Duc, where Claudel first attended school at the age of six. …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…an asylum remains unclear. She wrote lucid letters to her family and friends, and even her doctors recommended that she be released on at least two occasions. But her brother was often abroad, and her mother would not allow her release, claiming that she was too old to care for her daughter."I live in a world that is so curious, so strange," Claudel wrote in a letter to a friend in 1935. "Of the dream which was my life, this is the nightmare." She died eight years later, on October 19, 1943 in Montdevergues, France. Further Reading Ayral-Clause, Odile, Camille Claudel: A Life, Abrams, 2002.Paris, Reine-Marie, Camille: The Life of Camille Claudel, Rodin's Muse and Mistress, Seaver Books, 1988.Schmoll Eisenwerth, J. A., Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel, Prestel-Verlag, 1994.Smithsonian, September 1985."Artist Profile: Camille Claudel," http://www.nmwa.org/legacy/bios/bclaudel/htm (October 24, 2001)."Camille Claudel," http://www.musee-rodin.fr/claud-e.htm (November 1, 2001). |