Author Description

Until the publication of this book, Auguste Rodin, the greatest sculptor of the 19th century, had been notoriously ill-served by biographers. 'All the stuff written about him' commented George Bernard Shaw 'is ludicrous cackle and piffle.'Frederic Grunfeld's original and exhaustive research has enabled him to penetrate the legends perpetrated by Rodin's earlier hagiographers and detractors. For the first time a clear picture of Rodin's life emerges, his impoverished youth, his many love-affairs, his friendships and enmities, his public life, and above all his devotion to art and the life-long struggle to achieve official recognition without compromise.The age in which Rodin lived is also vividly conveyed. After his early successes Rodin was surrounded by the wealthy and famous. Zola, Balzac, Rilke, R. L. Stevenson, Edith Wharton, Debussy, Oscar Wilde, Edward VII, Clemenceau, and Kaiser Wilhelm II are just some of Rodin's famous contemporaries who figure in his life story, and without whom the story would not be complete.