Art Chowder November | December, Issue 18 | Page 37

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ell-written didactic panels and large
photo banners of the monumental works
just noted supply a context that raises the
exhibition of so many diverse fragments to an
impressive model of museumship.
Of course, primary credit goes to the Iris
and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, which
had loaned twenty-two of the pieces on view
and had previously donated three Rodins to
the fledgling museum in 1995-1996. What
would eventually become the largest and
most comprehensive private collection of
Rodin’s works began, as it were, by chance.
Bernie Cantor, who became one of the most
successful securities brokers in America,
wandered into the Metropolitan Museum in
New York in 1945 (the same year he started
his business) and was instantly captivated
by Rodin’s The Hand of God. Mr. Cantor
described the revelation evoked by the large
hand holding an amorphous mass of clay,
from which a male and a female figure (Adam
and Eve) were emerging, in this way, “I’d
never seen anything that fascinated me so
much,” he later said. “It was almost a religious
experience.” 1 Thus began what he would call
his “magnificent obsession” with the sculptor’s
life and work. Together with his wife Iris, they
would collect some 750 sculptures, drawings,
and related materials. But their goals went
far beyond mere acquisition. Their equal
passion was “a real desire to see other people
share the same pleasure” they found in their
collection. They have “donated hundreds of
works to dozens of cultural and educational
institutions around the world. In addition,
they have endowed museum galleries and
sculpture gardens, funded research on Rodin
and cultural history, and underwritten many
landmark exhibitions.” Mr. Cantor cultivated a
relationship with the Rodin Museum in Paris,
which eventually resulted in casting a full
scale version of The Gates of Hell in bronze,
using the highly detailed “lost wax” method,
a major undertaking that Rodin wished for but
did not live to see. At a height of 21 feet and
weighing eight tons, it can be seen at Stanford
University’s Cantor Center for Visual Arts. 2
Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917)
Hand of God, modeled 1898
Cast number and date unknown
Bronze; Alexis Rudier Foundry
Lent by Iris Cantor
It may be helpful right at this point to refer to one of the important explanatory
panels in the exhibition, entitled “ORIGINAL?” The sculptures of Rodin
represent an exception to the usual art-world rule that limits the designation
of an “original” to authorized works made during an artist’s lifetime. Rodin
wanted a museum that would carry on his memory after his passing. The
government could not finance such an endeavor using public money, so Rodin
authorized posthumous casts, to be strictly under the museum’s control, in
order to support the museum and assure the artist’s legacy in perpetuity.
According to these terms the Rodins in the Cantor Collection are counted as
authorized originals.
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