*SOLD OUT* The 20th Annual Benesse Lecture | Claudel and Rodin: Collaboration in the Studio

Thursday, February 8, 2024 from 7–8 p.m.

* This event has sold out. *

Reservations required.

$10 for members.

$20 general public.

FREE for students (with current student ID card). 

* Limited tickets available. *

The trailblazing French sculptor Camille Claudel defied the social expectations of her time to pursue original and powerful explorations of the human form. Emerson Bowyer, noted curator and scholar of European art, will discuss Claudel’s career, focusing on the decade she spent in Auguste Rodin's studio as presented in the exhibition, Camille Claudel at the Art Institute of Chicago. Bowyer will examine Claudel’s and Rodin’s complicated personal and artistic relationship at a time when the latter was creating his Gates of Hell and Burghers of Calais.

About the Speaker:

Emerson Bowyer is Searle Curator, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, at the Art Institute of Chicago. A specialist in 18th- and 19th-century French and British art, he has previously worked at the Frick Collection, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His exhibitions include David d’Angers: Making the Modern Monument (Frick Collection, 2013), Luminous Worlds: British Works on Paper 1760-1900 (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), and Like Life: Sculpture, Color, and the Body (Met Breuer, 2018), for which he was co-curator. The Art Institute is currently presenting two exhibitions co-conceived by Bowyer, Canova: Sketching in Clay (Nov 19, 2023–Mar 18, 2024) and Camille Claudel (Oct 7, 2023–Feb 19, 2024).

The 20th Annual Benesse Lecture is endowed by the Benesse Corporation.

*Please note: Museum lectures will take place in Gallery 105 during the renovation of the lower level.  

If you need accessibility accommodations, please contact us in advance at [email protected].