In a coup for the Gibbes Museum of Art, patrons can expect to cross paths with formidable world-class sculpture displayed throughout the building starting at the end of next month.
From Feb. 27, 2026, through Jan. 17, 2027, a robust collection of 14 works by one of the world’s leading sculptors, Auguste Rodin, will be displayed throughout the Gibbes. They will be settling in for nearly a year so that museumgoers from near and far have a rare chance for protracted interaction with these significant sculptures.
“Rodin is one of the biggest names in all of art history, probably without argument, the most famous sculptor of the 19th century, if not the early 20th century,” said Alex Rich, president and CEO of the museum. .
Those who may think they aren’t savvy on the oeuvre of the French sculptor may want to think again. His 1904 bronze sculpture The Thinker, or Le Penseur in its native tongue, famously situates a nude male on a rock, chin on hand. It is one of the most recognizable works of art in modern times. (The work is so well-known that there’s even a cartoon of Homer Simpson in the sculpture’s famous pose.)
That brooding behemoth wholly rapt in contemplation is often the gateway work of the artist, whose cast bronze sculptures and busts spanned the late 19th and early 20th centuries in sufficient supply to today populate an entire museum in Paris the artist founded to showcase his work for posterity.
“Everyone knows The Thinker, and so once you say The Thinker, even if people don’t know Rodin’s name, they go, Oh, I know Rodin,” Rich said.
At the Gibbes
While The Thinker is not among the works coming to the Gibbes, there are associated works. Moreover, visitors will get up close and personal with these works from casts created by Rodin then, forged at various foundries for decades since.
All are emblematic of Rodin’s signature, groundbreaking style – that uncanny ability to breathe life, with all its flaws and awe, into molten, molded bronze in a fashion that was at once visceral in its humanity and formidable in the sheer heft and presence.
These include a towering sculpture of a life-sized, paint palette-toting depiction of artist Claude Lorrain, coming in just shy of 7 feet, and the similarly large-scale, five-foot-plus-feet Meditation (With Arms). Patrons will also find a maquette of the latter work, which was commissioned in 1880 for the entrance to a decorative arts museum in Paris that reimagines a scene of Dante’s Inferno, but was never realized.
Busts abound, too – including one of Rodin, another of Eustache De Saint Pierre, one of the celebrated six self-sacrificing subjects collectively called The Burghers of Calais, and another still of fellow burgher Jean D’Aire. There are twisting torsos, supplicant Three Shades grouping a trio of figures, heads bent and hands grasped, as well as a gesturing, preaching Jean the Baptist.
Programmatic coup
The exhibition could be considered the first programmatic shot across the cultural bow for Rich, who landed the leadership spot after the 2025 retirement of longtime head Angela Mack.
It also represents a continuation of a relationship that Rich cultivated with the leaders of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, the philanthropic organization focused on both medicine and the arts that has a significant focus on the works of Rodin.
Rich previously worked with the foundation on the touring exhibition Rodin: Contemplations and Dreams, which landed at the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College, where he was curator. That exhibition also visited South Carolina in 2023 at Brookgreen Gardens.
The Gibbes exhibition further unleashes artistic star power at the museum, which Rich views as a top cultural destination in the Southeast befitting of top talents. It opens the heels of a similarly heady show, Rembrandt: Masterpieces in Black and White — Prints from the Rembrandt House Museum, the touring exhibition that launched at Gibbes in fall of 2025 and culminates Jan. 11.
Rich, who grew up in New York mere blocks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and eventually interned there, has long felt the power of Rodin – and has also witnessed the power of his presence in regional cultural hubs.
“For me just personally as a child of New York City, I know what it’s like to walk through the halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and see Rodins,” he said.
He then experienced the impact of the Rodin exhibition at the Polk Museum of Art, which garnered the highest attendance in the museum’s history.
“To have people walk in and see Rodins would be not only breathtaking, but also a game changer for the scope of what people believe the museum can and will be about,” he said.
IF YOU WANT TO GO: The exhibition will be on display as part of the museum’s regular entrance fee, which is $10 to $14 for adults. 135 Meeting St.
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