“The Thinker” by Auguste Rodin at Legion of Honor (Photo: Yair-haklai via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Visitors to the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco are welcomed by a monumental, 6-foot-tall bronze cast of The Thinker, one of French artist Auguste Rodin’s most iconic works. Positioned in the museum’s Court of Honor, the sculpture is a striking focal point within an institution founded to showcase a celebrated collection of Rodin’s art.
The original Thinker was sculpted by Rodin around 1880-1881. The brooding figure depicts the Italian poet Dante who is considered one of the greatest writers of the Middle Ages. Originally, the sculpture was meant to sit at the center of the tympanum of The Gates of Hell, an ambitious doorway for a planned Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris that was never completed.
Nonetheless, The Thinker became a work in its own right, and by 1889, it was exhibited in Paris at the Exposition Monet-Rodin at the Galerie Georges Petit. A 27-inch bronze cast from 1896, now housed at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, reflects the sculpture’s original size. Other casts sit at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, Kunsthalle Bielefeld in Germany, Columbia University in New York, Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and other notable establishments around the world.
There are thought to be around 28 to 30 official bronze casts of The Thinker, most of them produced by expert foundries working under Rodin’s supervision. One of the most important was the Alexis Rudier Foundry, which was responsible for casting many versions during Rodin’s lifetime, including the one placed in the courtyard of Legion of Honor.
San Francisco socialite and philanthropist Alma de Bretteville Spreckels acquired the sculpture with the help of her friend Loie Fuller in 1924. Fuller was a pioneering American dancer who moved in avant-garde circles in Paris and helped connect collectors with artists like Rodin.
A passionate supporter of the arts, Spreckels went on to build an impressive collection of Rodin’s work. The Thinker was one of the earliest pieces she purchased and became part of a group of more than 70 sculptures that she would later donate to the Legion of Honor, helping shape it into one of the most important Rodin collections outside of France.
Find out more about the incredible Rodin collection at Legion of Honor on the museum’s website. Legion of Honor is also home to an impressive collection of historic and contemporary art from around the world.
Visitors to the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco are welcomed by a monumental, 6-foot-tall bronze cast of The Thinker, one of French artist Auguste Rodin’s most iconic works.
Positioned in the museum’s Court of Honor, the sculpture is a striking focal point within an institution founded to showcase a celebrated collection of 70 Rodin works.
The brooding figure depicts the Italian poet Dante who is considered one of the greatest writers of the Middle Ages.
Legion of Honor is also home to an impressive collection of historic and contemporary art from around the world.
Here’s what some of the museum’s visitors thought of The Thinker.
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