Camille Claudel in her studio in Paris (source: Christie’s)

Camille Claudel (b. 1864, France) was a French sculptress working in bronze, marble, terracotta, and onyx. Her skill in sculpture was evident early in her life, and Claudel’s feather moved her to Paris in 1882 so that she could study sculpture at L’Academie Colarossi, the only art school open to women at the time. When the famed sculptor Auguste Rodin began instructing at the school, the two started a personal and professional partnership in which Claudel’s contributions to Rodin’s sculptures went largely unacknowledged. When Claudel struck on our an independent career of her own, she was widely hailed as a genius, a fact made even more remarkable by the limitations imposed on her by the misogyny of the early 1900s. In 1913, Claudel’s mother and brother controversially committed her to a mental institution due to their disapproval of her lifestyle, where Claudel spent the rest of her life.

Turner Carroll Gallery is proud to have set the North American record for the sale of Camille Claudel’s work. Turner Carroll gallery has sold L’implorante and secured Rêve au coin du feu (1899) in the collection of The Denver Art Museum among others. We are proud to also represent her grand-nephew Calyxte Campe.

More about Claudel can be found on the podcast Encyclopedia Womannica: listen here on Spotify. Information on the two major motion pictures about Claudel, Camille Claudel (from 1988) and Camille Claudel 1915 (from 2013), may be seen on IMDB.