Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - 21:30
AFP News Briefs ListSpanish capital to host Rodin exhibition
An exhibition of 33 sculptures and 90 drawings depicting mostly female nudes by France's Auguste Rodin will open Wednesday at the Mapfre Foundation in the Spanish capital Madrid, organisers said.
The majority of the drawings and three of the sculptures on display until July 6 as part of "Rodin. The Nude Body" have never left the Rodin Museum in Paris before, the museum's director Dominique Vieville told AFP.
Rodin, who died in 1917 at the age of 77, was regarded by many critics as the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo and he enjoyed great commercial success during his lifetime.
While he is well known for his sculptures, the curator of the Rodin Museum, Nadine Lehni, said his drawings were "extremely innovative, especially for their extreme simplification of the human form, touching on abstraction".
At the end of last year the Mapfre Foundation held an exhibit featuring sculptures by Camille Claudel, Rodin's student and lover.
Images
A cameraman films "The kiss" sculpture by French artist Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) as part of a new exhibition " The body nude" in Madrid.
© 2007 AFP Philippe Desmazes
