Rodin and Bourdelle at La Piscine de Roubaix

Retelling one of the great artistic dialogues, La Piscine in Roubaix focuses on the relationship between Antoine Bourdelle and Auguste Rodin.

A mentorship, friendship and collaboration that spanned 5 decades of creation and was as complex as it was profound. Bourdelle, 20 years Rodin’s junior, admired and worked for the master sculptor for 15 years as a marble carver. Rodin recognised Bourdelle’s potential, calling him an ‘explorer of the future’. Their relationship was marked by mutual respect and an exchange of ideas, letters and artworks, intersecting with other notable figures like Camille Claudel and Isadora Duncan.

La Piscine – Musée d’art et d’industrie André-Diligent, an art museum in Roubaix which is housed in a former Art Deco swimming pool, brings together 160 works including sculptures, drawings, paintings and photographs to explore the artists’ shared rejection of naturalism, return to ancient sources, expressionist modelling and path towards abstraction in modern sculpture.

Until June 1

www.roubaix-lapiscine.com

From France Today Magazine