Photos were taken in September 2013.   
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Cantor Art Center

From its earliest days, Stanford University has had an art museum. After significant damage from the 1989 earthquake, the museum, now named the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, reopened in January 1999. The original 78,000 square-foot building was remodeled and seismically upgraded, and a new 42,000 square-foot wing was added. Among the museum's galleries are three devoted to the Rodin collection. The museum is open to the public, free of charge, six days a week (closed Tuesdays).

 

Rodin Collection

Stanford University houses one of the largest collections of works by Auguste Rodin in the world. In addition to nearly 100 works located inside the museum building, there are 20 bronzes, including the Gates of Hell, in the adjoining Sculpture Garden (pictured). Other works by Rodin, notably the Burghers of Calais, are located elsewhere on the campus.

Approaching the museum through the garden, you enter the building through an impressive gallery featuring The Thinker (pictured).

These pages do not begin to provide a comprehensive overview of this collection. Rather, they focus on selected pieces, both famous and lesser known. In that latter category falls this intriquing study, The Hand of Rodin (pictured below). Cast from the actual hand of Rodin three weeks before his death, this hand is surprizingly smooth and small -- only nine inches in length -- a contrast with some of Rodin's other hands (see Figures). The artist, who was probably one of the workers in Rodin's studio, incorporated a small torso, perhaps one of the fragments available in the studio, creating a work that joins a cast made from life with an original art work.

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