French sculptor Auguste Rodin is one of the world’s most well-known artists, and his work had a profound influence on the development of modern art. Born in 1840, he went on to produce some of the world’s best known and most celebrated sculptures including The Age of Bronze (1876), The Thinker (1880) and The Kiss (1882).

Rodin’s sculptures are normally found in the large metropolitan museums of Europe and the United States but on this occasion an important work has found its way to Ashburton.

Developed and toured by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Remembering Rodin Te Whakamahara ki a Rodin showcases New Zealand’s most significant Rodin sculpture, Eve (1882), a work that has been appreciated by fellow artists, experts, scholars and connoisseurs for many years.

Eve relates to Rodin’s famous master work, The Gates of Hell.  The female figure is hunched in despair, a very ‘Rodinesque’ pose, showing humankind’s humiliation following the expulsion from paradise.  It’s a beautiful image, but a tragic, melancholic, timeless one too.

Also included in the exhibition is a lithographic portrait of Rodin (1914) by his famous near contemporary Pierre-Auguste Renoir, along with an extremely handsome and rare leather bound edition of Gustave Coquiot’s Rodin (Paris, 1915) with 57 hand-tipped photographs.

Image credit: Auguste Rodin, Eve, Bronze 1882. Te Papa (1959-0029-1) purchased 1959 with Lindsay Buick Bequest funds