Antoine Bourdelle

Antoine Bourdelle (30 October 1861 – 1 October 1929) was a French sculptor and teacher. Born Émile Antoine Bordelles, he studied under Auguste Rodin, later taught artists including Giacometti and Henri Matisse, and played a key role in the Art Deco movement as well as the shift from Beaux-Arts to modern sculpture. His former studio in Paris is now the Musée Bourdelle.

Bourdelle was born in Montauban, France, to a father who worked as a wood craftsman and cabinet-maker. At thirteen, he left school to help in his father’s workshop and began carving his first wooden sculptures. In 1876, with help from writer Émile Pouvillon, he earned a scholarship to the School of Fine Arts in Toulouse, though he remained independent and resisted the formal curriculum. At twenty-four, he placed second in the competition to enter the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he worked in Alexandre Falguière’s studio and often visited the studio of neighbor Jules Dalou.

In 1885, Bourdelle exhibited at the annual Salon and won an honorable mention for *The First Victory of Hannibal*. He rented a studio at 16 Impasse du Main, next to painters Eugène Carrière and Jean-Paul Laurens, and worked there for the rest of his life. In 1887, he left Falguière’s studio and, inspired by Beethoven’s music, began a series of roughly forty sculptures of the composer. In September 1893, he joined Rodin’s studio, collaborating with him for fifteen years. His first official commission, a war monument for Montauban in 1895, caused a scandal because of its unconventional design; Rodin intervened, and it was finally erected in 1902. In 1900, Bourdelle showed his independence from Rodin with a bust of Apollo. That same year, he, Rodin, and sculptor Desbois opened a short-lived free sculpture school, the Institut Rodin-Debois-Bourdelle, where one student was Henri Matisse.

Bourdelle’s first solo exhibition came in 1905 at the gallery of foundry-owner Hébrand, whose support and materials allowed him to create larger works and gain wider recognition. After his father died in 1906, Bourdelle changed his first name to Antoine. He married his second wife, Cléopatre Sevastos, of Greek origin; she and their daughter Rhodia often inspired his work. In 1908, he left Rodin’s studio to work independently. The next year, he exhibited *Hercules the Archer* at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. He began teaching at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, where his students included Giacometti, Isaac Frenkel, and Adaline Kent. In 1913, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées opened with facade and interior decoration by Bourdelle, marking the debut of the Art Deco style and a step toward modernism. He participated in the 1913 Armory Show in New York and was a founder and vice-president of the Salon des Tuileries. During World War I, he stayed in Paris working on a monument to General Alvear for an Argentine patron, inaugurated in Buenos Aires in 1925. In 1929, his first major public sculpture in Paris, a monument to poet Adam Mickiewicz, was unveiled at place de l’Alma (later moved to cours Albert-Ier).

In poor health, Bourdelle died at Le Vésinet near Paris on 1 October 1929 and was buried at Cimetière du Montparnasse.

Today, the Musée Bourdelle occupies his house, studio, and garden at 18 rue Antoine Bourdelle in Paris, where he worked from 1884 to 1929. In the 1930s, his widow opened the studio for viewings; in 1949, she and their daughter donated it to the city, and the street was renamed. A second museum, the Bourdelle Garden-Museum in Égreville, France, was established by his daughter and son-in-law starting in 1969, displaying 56 of his sculptures outdoors.

His work appears in public collections worldwide, including the Musée d’Orsay (Paris), the National Museum of Western Art (Tokyo), the List Visual Arts Center at MIT, Harvard University Art Museums, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the National Museum of Art of Romania, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Courtauld Institute of Art (London), the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Rome), the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth), the Kröller-Müller Museum (Otterlo), the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires), the National Galleries of Scotland, the National Gallery of Australia, Musée Ingres (Montauban), the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, the Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum (Antwerp), and the Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, Florida).

In 1904, Bourdelle married artist Stephanie van Parys.