Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery Presents "Rodin's Obsession: The Gates of Hell - Selections From the Iris & B. Gerald Collection"

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross presents Rodin's Obsession: The Gates of Hell - Selections from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Collection, from Friday, June 20 through Friday, August 29, 2003. Rodin's Obsession marks the first summer exhibition at the Cantor Art Gallery in its 20 year history.

Elizabeth Johns, Lilly Vocational Fellow at the College's Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, will present an opening lecture on Rodin's The Gates of Hell at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 19 at the gallery. Her talk will be followed by a preview reception from 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Collected, organized and circulated by the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation to small museums and universities throughout the country, this exhibit features approximately 30 individual sculptures that Rodin modeled as he developed and designed The Gates of Hell from 1880 until c. 1900.

Rodin's most ambitious commission, The Gates of Hell was originally intended as an entrance for a museum of decorative arts to be built in Paris. While the museum was never realized, Rodin used The Gates as a jumping-off point for many of his most widely known sculptures. Beginning in the 1880s, he exhibited many of the figures from The Gates of Hell independently as freestanding sculptures.

Among the most famous of Rodin's figures featured in this Cantor Art Gallery exhibition are a cast of The Thinker (1880) and a cast of The Three Shades (1880-1904). Other works include two preliminary maquettes Rodin made of the form of The Gates as well as many of the sculptures he produced as components of the final design. This exhibition also contains objects showing the lost wax process used by Rodin.

Inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy (1307) and by Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), a volume of poetry that examines complex, often morbid emotional states, The Gates features hundreds of figures modeled in high relief and in the round. They are said to reveal Rodin's vision of the human condition.

The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, donated to the College by the Cantors, opened in October 1983. Over the years the Cantors have donated and loaned numerous works of art to Holy Cross, including the 7-foot monumental figure of Eustache de St. Pierre, by Rodin, located at the entrance of the gallery.

The summer hours for the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery are Monday-Friday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.; closed Saturdays. Located in O'Kane Hall, 1st Floor, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, Worcester, Mass., 01610. Admission to the gallery is free and open to the public. (The gallery will be closed July 3 and 4 for the 4th of July holiday.)

For additional information please contact the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at 508-793-3356 or visit the Gallery's web site at: http://www.holycross.edu/departments/cantor/website/