Auguste Rodin, a household name in art history, was one of the foundational figures in sculpture’s passage to modernity. His sculptures broke with the sweetness and refinement of traditional sculpture, bringing complex human emotions and movement into the form and truly achieving “sculpting the human through form.” On September 27, the new Rodin Art Center opened in Shanghai’s Pudong district with 106 works, all originals by Rodin, his teachers, or his students. Nearly fifty are by Rodin himself, including six works regarded as French national treasures—The Thinker, The Age of Bronze, Eve, Balzac, and The Burghers of Calais—which require the French president’s signature to leave the country. For the first time, they were transported together to China; the one-way air shipment alone cost nearly 3.84 million renminbi.

Auguste Rodin, The Thinker, 1880, installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. Exterior of the Rodin Art Center, 2024. “In 2017, the Rodin Museum gave me this project. I brought it to China, and it has now been exactly 8 years. To be honest, this road has been incredibly difficult. Many times, I came close to giving up,” said Wu Jing, founder of the Rodin Art Center.

She is a Chinese-born collector with an excellent reputation among the circles surrounding Europe’s major museums, and the first woman of Chinese heritage among the Louvre’s patrons to have her name formally inscribed on a wall inside the museum. Most of the collection on view at the Rodin Art Center comes from her private holdings, making it possible to see Rodin’s work in person without a flight of more than ten hours to France. Before the opening, we visited the Rodin Art Center as installation was under way and spoke with Wu Jing about the inaugural Rodin exhibition and the eight-year journey that brought it into being.

Wu Jing’s account: We are exhibiting 106 original works in all, arranged in 6 chapters: Where did Rodin come from? Who was Rodin? His breakthrough works, his dark period, and finally his emergence as a master known throughout the world. There is also a special section. Using this timeline, we connect the stages of Rodin’s life, from works he made as a young apprentice to his celebrated pieces and representative works from his dark period.

If visitors begin in the first gallery and continue through to the end, they will gain a fairly complete understanding of Rodin’s life. Nearly all the important works in the museum are displayed without cases, so that visitors can have the best possible experience. Exterior of the Rodin Art Center, 2024. Installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. The route begins at the main entrance, where visitors first encounter Rodin’s The Thinker in the atrium. They take the escalator to the 4th floor, then follow the galleries downward in a continuous circuit.

This gallery was originally the French Pavilion at the World Expo. When Jacques Ferrier designed it, he built it to the standards of an international art museum. The first time I saw the building, I felt it had been made for Rodin’s sculptures. It makes maximum use of natural light, and depending on the weather and the angle of the sun, every sculpture is constantly, subtly changing.

Installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. Works by Rodin’s teacher Carrier-Belleuse: Bacchante, 1870; Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, Bust of a Young Woman, 1870. These were made while Rodin was still working in his teacher’s studio, so they bear the teacher’s signature, Carrier-Belleuse. Installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. The first gallery recreates a 19th-century setting, including works by Rodin’s teacher Carrier-Belleuse and pieces Rodin made early in his career in the teacher’s studio.

The young Rodin already had a restless spirit. He was dissatisfied with the traditional, idealized expression inherited from the Renaissance. Quietly, he began making small interventions—for instance, rendering the folds of a garment as a crossing pattern rather than a chain of flowers, and treating the hair in a simpler, looser manner.

Installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, Spring, 1865. This vase is exceptionally rare. Even the vases at the Rodin Museum in France are unfinished works by Rodin, whereas the one we are exhibiting is complete. These were commissions Rodin made at his teacher’s request, but in the details he began making small changes according to his own understanding of art. He could not alter them so drastically that his teacher would notice, so it became rather playful, like a game of hide-and-seek.

Wu Jing, founder of the Rodin Art Center, in conversation with Yi Tiao. Auguste Rodin, The Age of Bronze, 1877, installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. The Age of Bronze was Rodin’s first celebrated work. He made it after seeing Michelangelo’s sculptures during a trip to Italy, which deeply inspired him. At the time, some people even suspected that Rodin had cast the work directly from a model, because the musculature and expression were so realistic.

But Rodin’s artist friends later testified on his behalf, and he became famous almost overnight. By then, he was 40. People may call Rodin a genius, but I think he was an artist beset by misfortune; he was absolutely not a genius. He did not become famous until 40, and after taking the entrance examination three times, he still could not get into the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. Only his commitment to an artistic ideal enabled him to persist to the end. Auguste Rodin, Eve, 1881, installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. Installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. The 6 originals we see in this exhibition—The Thinker, The Age of Bronze, Eve, Balzac, and The Burghers of Calais—are all French national treasures. They have never been lent in this way before. For them to travel by plane, the French president himself had to sign the authorization, and we paid 480,000 euros for the one-way flight.

Every work is extraordinarily precious and, of course, extremely fragile, since the originals are made of ceramic or plaster. The pressure on us has been immense. I often joke with friends, “You could even find Rodin’s fingerprints on these works, because he shaped them with his own hands.”

Installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. Today, everyone knows Rodin as the greatest modern sculptor after Michelangelo. Having studied and mastered classical techniques, he used his sculptures to express the most truthful aspects of human beings and their inner emotions. In a sense, it was under his influence that classical sculpture moved into the modern era. Claude Leméry, Rodin Seated in a Room at the Hôtel Biron, with a Vase on the Table, photographed April 22, 1912, © Musée Rodin. Visitors will notice many Chinese ceramics on site, as well as Chinese images of Guanyin.

These are not from my collection. They are Chinese works of art that Rodin himself collected during his lifetime. Once, I was invited to visit Rodin’s former home. The director took me to a very large conservation center in the basement, where, in an inconspicuous corner, I found a Chinese blue-and-white porcelain vase, with several Tang figurines beside it.

Installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. At the time, I assumed they were museum objects used as decoration. But when I asked the director, she said, “Non, non, these are Chinese works of art collected by Rodin himself.” I was astonished, because in all my research on Rodin I had not encountered any extensive discussion of his interest in Chinese art. That was how I discovered that, beneath it all, Rodin had a heart that loved China.

Seated Guanyin Holding a Child, 15th–16th century (early to mid-Ming dynasty), purchased by Rodin on May or June 1911 from Paul Terse at 9 Rue de la Monceau, Paris, for 400 francs. Rodin never visited China during his lifetime, yet he collected so many Chinese works of art. Chinese art may also have provided him with considerable inspiration. He especially treasured this Chinese bronze Guanyin, whom he called “the Chinese muse.”

These works are highly significant to our more comprehensive study of Rodin. Auguste Rodin, Monument to Balzac, 1898, installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. Further inside, we reach Rodin’s “dark period.” Its greatest representative work is Balzac. He received the commission from the French Writers’ Association, which wanted him to portray the great novelist as a national hero.

But Rodin wanted to reflect Balzac as he truly was. He abandoned all his other work and spent half a year living in Balzac’s native town, visiting all of Balzac’s relatives and friends. Balzac had died more than 20 years before Rodin, so Rodin wanted to learn as much as possible about him from those who had known him. He spent 8 years on the work, pouring all his energy into it. His entire studio ceased production, and he was facing bankruptcy.

Auguste Rodin, Monument to Balzac, 1898, installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. The Balzac now in our gallery is complete—the work as it stood after 8 years. But at the Rodin Museum in France there are more than 100 studies of parts of Balzac’s body, down to the detail of a single finger. After 8 years of research, rejection, denial, and reconstruction, Rodin finally completed the work. When he proudly delivered it to the Writers’ Association, he did not expect the organization to reject it outright. Everyone thought he had made Balzac too ugly: not a great novelist or national hero, but a monster, like a potbellied penguin.

Auguste Rodin, The Burghers of Calais: Monumental Head of Jean de Fiennes, 1908–1909, installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. Auguste Rodin, The Burghers of Calais: Pierre de Wiessant Dressed, 1887, installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. In the end, Rodin had no choice but to take Balzac home. The rejection was a severe blow. Even when he died, the work had still not been recognized by the French Writers’ Association, and it remained in Rodin’s former home.

At the time of his death, Rodin repeatedly murmured: “If there is no truth in this world, this work will be smashed to pieces after I die. But if there is truth in this world, it will live forever.” Exterior of the Rodin Art Center, 2024. I have always felt that Rodin’s spirit influenced me. I often say that Rodin completed Balzac in 8 years, and I spent 8 years creating the Rodin Art Center. I grew up in France, visited many cities, and saw many museums—the Louvre, the Metropolitan, the British Museum, the Musée d’Orsay. Children can copy and study in front of these originals.

Wu Jing and Amélie Smeyers, director of the Musée Rodin in France. Later, because of our shared love of Rodin, circumstances brought me into a friendship across generations with the director of the Musée Rodin in France. I collected, studied, and researched along the way. Then I had the opportunity to come to China and discovered that the country lacked an international sculpture museum. I was fortunate to have amassed a certain number of works over the years, and I thought that creating an internationally oriented museum with a rich collection in China was something that urgently needed to be done.

Installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. There are far too many stories behind this center to tell. Take the works on view: every sculpture is heavy, and one weighs nearly one ton. Our galleries are also sloped, so every platform had to be custom-made, at considerable expense. I joke that all the money went into places visitors cannot see. Auguste Rodin, The Kiss, 1882–1898, installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. The Kiss, in the final gallery, has quite a story. It is the only one of the 12 bronze sculptures still in private hands rather than in a national museum.

Last year, the work was also exhibited at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. When the exhibition ended, the Louvre Abu Dhabi returned all the other works but “held on” to this one. They refused to give it back, saying they wanted to buy it. The unusual presentation you see here came from my realization that young people today seem less inclined to dream about love. But I believe love is the most important and beautiful thing in life. So we placed the work in a kaleidoscopic field of flowers, using it to close the exhibition with love’s beautiful side—and as a blessing for our visitors.

Wu Jing at the construction site of the Rodin Art Center. We officially began construction at the end of May and continued until the opening at the end of September. In those 4 months, we had to complete the inaugural Rodin exhibition across approximately 4,500 square meters, while bringing the galleries up to international museum standards. In the eyes of many of my French colleagues, it was an impossible task. On this “construction site,” I endured Shanghai’s hottest summer, its strongest typhoon, and the city’s rainstorms on the day of its highest recorded water accumulation.

I went from being a collector to a construction worker, working in a shell of an unfinished building. But it was fun, too. I feel that it enriched my experience of life.

Installation view of “Rodin: The Inheritance and Renewal of Modern Sculpture,” Rodin Art Center, 2024. I had waited 8 years. I went through so many rises and falls that my emotions felt like a roller coaster. I shed countless tears and grew a great deal of gray hair. Now, looking at these works, I feel completely at peace. There is truly no agitation left. Because the greatest happiness is this: I have finished it.