List of Thinker sculptures

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"The Thinker" in front of Philosophy Hall at Columbia University
"The Thinker" in front of the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia

This is a list of Thinker sculptures made by Auguste Rodin. The original Thinker was a part of Rodin's The Gates of Hell. The sculpture exists in several versions. The original size and the later monumental size versions were both created by Rodin. The most valuable versions are those created under Rodin's supervision. There were also other casts made from the original plaster mold by the Musee Rodin after his death in a limited edition of 12 copies. The Thinker exists as bronze casts, exhibition plaster casts (some were painted to look like bronze patina), and original production plasters, which some consider art objects today.

Copies of the Thinker made during Rodin's lifetime

Vandals damaged The Thinker at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It remains unrepaired. According to police, the perpetrators were a faction of the Weathermen, possibly the same individuals killed in a bomb-making accident in New York City[1] No one was ever charged.[2])
The Thinker at the Cantor Arts Center of Stanford University
Location Size Material Date Notes References
National Gallery of Victoria Original Bronze 1884 Earliest bronze casting, has Florentine cap [3]
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire (Geneva) Original Bronze 1896 [4]
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Original Bronze 1901 [5]
Destroyed Monumental Plaster, bronze-tinted 1904 Earliest monumental, displayed outside Paris Pantheon, destroyed January 1905 by madman [6]
University of Louisville Monumental Bronze 1903 First casting by A. A. Hébrard, lost wax technique, displayed at Louisiana Purchase Exposition [6][7]
Detroit Institute of Arts Monumental Bronze 1903 First casting by Alexis Rudier, sand casting, 4 days younger than Louisville copy,
publicly displayed at Leipzig and Berlin 		[8]
Metropolitan Museum, New York Monumental Plaster, bronze-tinted 1904 Sent to Louisiana Purchase Exhibition to replace the bronze version [6]
Musée Rodin Monumental Bronze 1904 Installed outside Paris Panthéon in 1906, moved to Musée Rodin garden in 1922 [9]
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Monumental Bronze 1904 the "third Hébrard copy" [6][1]
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Monumental Plaster 1904 acquired by museum in October 1904 [6]
National Museum, Poznań Monumental Plaster 1904 acquired in January 1905 [6][10]
Legion of Honor, San Francisco Monumental Bronze 1904 Alexis Rudier cast, purchased in 1915, donated to San Fransisco in 1922 [11]
Private collection Original Bronze 1906 made for Ralph Pulitzer, sold for $15.3 million in 2013 [12]
Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Monumental Plaster by 1907 exhibited in Strasbourg in 1907 before museum's purchase [13]
Ca' Pesaro, Venice Monumental Plaster, bronze-tinted by 1907 purchased at the 1907 Biennale [14]
Waldemarsudde, Sweden Monumental Bronze 1908 Alexis Rudier cast, for Prince Eugen of Norway and Sweden [15]
Private collection Original Bronze 1916 sold for $11.8 million in 2010 [16][17]
Rodin's tomb, Meudon Monumental Bronze 1916 Alexis Rudier cast, placed at the grave when his wife died [6]
Cleveland Museum of Art Monumental Bronze 1916 Alexis Rudier cast, purchased 1916, badly damaged by vandalism in 1970, displayed in an unrepaired state [2][18][1]
Musée Rodin at Meudon Monumental Plaster, bronze-tinted by 1916 the museum has several plaster casts in different sizes and of different ages [19]

Later casts

Asia

Europe

Laeken Cemetery, Belgium

North America

Copy of The Thinker in The Thinker Sculpture Court, Adrian College, Adrian, Michigan

South America

"The Thinker" in the Congressional Plaza in Buenos Aires.

Asia

Europe

North America

Damaged Thinker in Cleveland, Ohio

South America

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Twenty-Five Years After the Bomb: Maintaining Cleveland's The Thinker". Journal of the American Institute of Conservation 37 (2): 173–186. 1998. Archived from the original on 25 September 2009.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "The Thinker Vandalized" The Cleveland Museum of Art
  3. ↑ François Blanchetière; David Thurrowgood (2013). "Two insights into Auguste Rodin's The thinker". Art Journal (National Gallery of Victoria) 52. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  4. ↑ "Le Penseur, élément de la Porte de l'Enfer". Musées d'art et d'histoire, Genève. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  5. ↑ "The Thinker (Le Penseur)". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 "Rodin's Enlarged Thinker". RODIN-WEB. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  7. ↑ Janene Zaccone (9 April 2012). "Fact Sheet: The Thinker at the University of Louisville". University of Louisville. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  8. ↑ "The Thinker". Detroit Institute of Arts. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  9. ↑ "The Thinker". Musée Rodin. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  10. ↑ Hans de Roos (23 December 2004). "The Digital Sculpture Project: Applying 3D Scanning Techniques for the Morphological Comparison of Sculptures],". Computer and Information Science 9 (2). ISSN 1401-9841. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  11. ↑ "The Thinker". Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  12. ↑ "Now that's something to ponder: Auguste Rodin's The Thinker sells for a record $15.3 million at auction]". Daily Mail. 9 May 2013. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  13. ↑ "Survey of the Large Thinker Plaster Cast in Strasbourg (1)". 3 December 2002. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  14. ↑ Rodin Auguste, Catalogue of Ca' Pesaro
  15. ↑ Auguste Rodin, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde
  16. ↑ Christopher Michaud (6 May 2010). "Sotheby's marks a solid night at Impressionist sale". Reuters. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  17. ↑ Labo (2 October 2012). "The valuing of exceptional paintings and works of art". Gilles Perrault. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  18. ↑ "A God Among Men". The Cleveland Free Times.
  19. ↑ The Thinker, Joconde Portail des collections des musées de France
  20. ↑ "Water Fountain Garden: The Thinker (Le Penseur)". Kyoto National Museum. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  21. ↑ "Museum Dictionary: Rodin's Thinker". Kyoto National Museum. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  22. ↑ "The Thinker (Enlarged)", National Museum of Western Art. Accessed 20 March 2013.
  23. ↑ "List of works at Rodin wing", Shizuoka Prefectural Art Museum. Accessed 20 March 2013.
  24. ↑ "Le Penseur". Kunst in de openbare ruimte. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  25. ↑ "Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco List of Thinkers, Accessed January 2014
  26. ↑ Browse by Title - Norton Simon Museum
  27. ↑ Robin Wander (24 January 2012). "The Thinker, one of the most famous works of art in the world, comes home to Stanford's Cantor Arts Center". Stanford Report. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  28. ↑ Panoramio - Photo of Réplica firmada de "e;El pensador"e; de August Rodin
  29. ↑ "BBC, Buenos Aires Thinker vandalized, Accessed January 2014
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 "The enlarged Thinker: New posthumous bronze casts", penseur.org. Accessed 20 March 2013.
  31. ↑ "Donation of Rodin's 'the Thinker':A Generous Birthday Give [sic] to NTHU", National Tsing Hua University. Accessed 20 March 2013.
  32. ↑ "Auguste Rodin". Musée des Beaux-Arts Montréal. Archived from the original on 22 November 2013.
  33. ↑ Auguste Rodin, The Thinker
  34. ↑ MacLaren Art Centre - Media Releases - The Thinker Reviewed
  35. ↑ Dan Barry; William K. Rashbaum (20 May 2002). "Born of Hell, Lost After Inferno". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  36. ↑ City of Goldendale - Arts & Culture
  37. ↑ Auguste Rodin — The Thinker
  38. ↑ "PR: Martin Lawrence Galleries Delivers World-renowned Masterpieces to the Las Vegas Strip". OpenVegas. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  39. ↑ "Photo of the Authorized replica in the Ricardo Brennand Institute".
  40. ↑ "Instituto Ricardo Brennand abre no feriado de Páscoa" [Ricardo Brennand Institute opens on Easter holiday] (in Portuguese). Sim!. Archived from the original on 6 December 2007.
  41. ↑ "Galeria de Fotos: Belém ganha exposição internacional de Camille Claudel" [Photo gallery: Bethlehem wins international exhibition of Camille Claudel] (in Portuguese). Portal ORM. 21 June 2006. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Le Penseur.