List of The Thinker sculptures

This is a list of The Thinker sculptures made by Auguste Rodin. The Thinker, originally a part of Rodin's The Gates of Hell, exists in several versions. The original size and the later monumental size versions were both created by Rodin, and the most valuable versions are those created under his supervision. There was also a limited edition of 12 copies made from the original plaster mold by the Musée Rodin after Rodin's death.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

The Thinker in front of the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia

The Thinker exists as bronze casts, exhibition plaster casts (some were painted to look like bronze patina), and original production plasters, which some consider art objects today.

Copies of The Thinker made during Rodin's lifetime

Vandals damaged The Thinker at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1970. It remains unrepaired. According to police, the perpetrators were a faction of the Weathermen, possibly the same individuals killed in a bomb-making accident in New York City[1]

Laeken Cemetery, Belgium

Location	Size	Material	Date	Notes	References
National Gallery of Victoria	Original	Bronze	1884	Earliest bronze casting, has Florentine cap	[2]
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva	Original	Bronze	1896		[3]
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.	Original	Bronze	1901		[4]
Panthéon, Latin Quarter, Paris (destroyed)	Monumental	Plaster, bronze-tinted	1904	Earliest monumental. The statue was vandalized and later scrapped.	[5]
University of Louisville	Monumental	Bronze	1903	First casting by A. A. Hébrard, lost wax technique, displayed at Louisiana Purchase Exposition	[5][6]
Detroit Institute of Arts	Monumental	Bronze	1903	First casting by Alexis Rudier, sand casting, four days younger than Louisville copy, publicly displayed at Leipzig and Berlin	[7]
Metropolitan Museum, New York	Monumental	Plaster, bronze-tinted	1904	Sent to Louisiana Purchase Exhibition to replace the bronze version	[5]
Musée Rodin, Paris	Monumental	Bronze	1904	Installed outside Paris Panthéon in 1906, moved to Musée Rodin garden in 1922	[8]
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek	Monumental	Bronze	1904	the "third Hébrard copy"	[1][5]
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden	Monumental	Plaster	1904	acquired by museum in October 1904	[5]
National Museum, Poznań	Monumental	Plaster	1904	acquired in January 1905	[5][9]
Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art	Monumental	Plaster	1904	purchased from the artist in 1907	[10]
Legion of Honor, San Francisco	Monumental	Bronze	1904	Alexis Rudier cast, purchased in 1915, donated to San Francisco in 1922	[11]
Private collection, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts	Original	Bronze	1906	made for Ralph Pulitzer, sold for $15.3 million in 2013
Laeken Cemetery, Brussels	Monumental	Bronze	1906	Alexis Rudier cast, installed on the grave of Jef Dillen in 1927	[5][12][13]
Ca' Pesaro, Venice	Monumental	Plaster, bronze-tinted	1907	purchased at the 1907 Biennale	[14]
Congressional Plaza, Buenos Aires	Monumental	Bronze	1907	Purchased by the museum director to Auguste Rodin, one of the three sculptures cast in the original mold and signed by him	[15][16][17]
Waldemarsudde, Sweden	Monumental	Bronze	1908	Alexis Rudier cast, for Prince Eugen of Norway and Sweden	[18]
Private collection	Original	Bronze	1916	sold for $11.8 million in 2010	[19][20]
Rodin's tomb, Meudon	Monumental	Bronze	1916	Alexis Rudier cast, placed at the grave when his wife died	[5]
Cleveland Museum of Art	Monumental	Bronze	1916	Alexis Rudier cast, purchased 1916, badly damaged by vandalism in 1970, displayed in an unrepaired state	[1][21][22]
Musée Rodin at Meudon	Monumental	Plaster, bronze-tinted	1916	the museum has several plaster casts in different sizes and of different ages	[23]

In front of the University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Hall in Louisville, Kentucky.

Later casts

Europe

• France
  • Saint-Paul de Vence
• Germany
  • Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
  • Sächsisches Landesgymnasium Sankt Afra zu Meißen, Meissen
  • Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld
• Netherlands
  • Apollolaan, in front of the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel[24]
  • Singer Laren, Laren (badly damaged by thieves in 2007; restored and re-exhibited in 2010)
• Norway
  • National Gallery of Norway, Oslo
• Russia
  • Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
• Serbia
  • University of Arts, Belgrade
• Switzerland
  • Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich
• Turkey
  • Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul
  • Bakırköy Psychiatric Hospital, Istanbul
• United Kingdom
  • Burrell Collection (Pollok House), Glasgow, Scotland
• Vatican City
  • Vatican Museums, Collection of Modern Religious Art

North America

The Thinker in front of Philosophy Hall at Columbia University

• Canada
  • Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Montreal[25]
  • Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto[26]
  • MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie[27][28]
• Mexico
  • Museo Soumaya, Mexico City
• United States
  • Cantor Fitzgerald offices in World Trade Center, New York City (survived the September 11 attacks; missing afterwards)[29]
  • Columbia University, New York City
  • Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale[30]
  • Bal Harbour Shops, Miami[31]
  • Martin Lawrence Gallery, Las Vegas[32]
  • University of Louisville, Louisville
  • Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore
  • Rodin Museum, Philadelphia
  • Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
  • Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena[33]
  • Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Stanford[34]
  • Legion of Honor, San Francisco
  • North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh[35]

South America

• Argentina
  • Museum of Modern Art, Buenos Aires
• Brazil
  • Ricardo Brennand Institute, Recife[36][37]
  • Lily Marinho collection, Rio de Janeiro[38]
• Chile
  • Borde Costero, Viña del Mar

Asia

The Thinker in NTHU, Taiwan

• China
  • China Central Academy of Fine Arts library, Beijing
  • Guangzhou Opera House, Guangzhou
  • Shanghai Library, Shanghai
  • Changchun World Sculpture Park, Changchun
• India
  • Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati
  • Thinkers Park at Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Pondicherry
  • Nalsar University of Law, Shamirpet
• Indonesia
  • Kolese Kanisius, Jakarta
• Israel
  • RAD Data Communications, Tel Aviv
• Japan
  • The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo[39]
  • Kyoto National Museum, Kyoto[40][41]
  • Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka[42]
• Singapore
  • OUE Bayfront, Marina Bay
  • Resorts World Sentosa, Sentosa Island
• South Korea
  • Beartree Park, Chungchongnam-do
• Taiwan
  • National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu[43]

References

1. "Twenty-Five Years After the Bomb: Maintaining Cleveland's The Thinker". Journal of the American Institute of Conservation. 37 (2): 173–186. 1998. doi:10.1179/019713698806082877. Archived from the original on 25 September 2009.
2. Blanchetière, François; Thurrowgood, David (2013). "Two insights into Auguste Rodin's The Thinker". Art Journal. National Gallery of Victoria. 52. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
3. "Le Penseur, élément de la Porte de l'Enfer". Musées d'art et d'histoire, Genève. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
4. "The Thinker (Le Penseur)". National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
5. "Rodin's Enlarged Thinker". RODIN-WEB. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
6. Zaccone, Janene (9 April 2012). "Fact Sheet: The Thinker at the University of Louisville". University of Louisville. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
7. "The Thinker". Detroit Institute of Arts. Archived from the original on 5 April 2015. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
8. "The Thinker". Musée Rodin. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
9. de Roos, Hans (23 December 2004). "The Digital Sculpture Project: Applying 3D Scanning Techniques for the Morphological Comparison of Sculptures". Computer and Information Science. 9 (2). CiteSeerX 10.1.1.124.6463. ISSN 1401-9841.
10. "Le Penseur". navigart.fr. 3 December 2002. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
11. "The Thinker". Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
12. "Le penseur du père Lachaise Bruxellois". Le soir. 31 October 1992. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
13. "Les secrets de Laeken : à la découverte du « Père Lachaise » belge". L'avenir. 22 August 2015. Retrieved 20 February 2017. One of the 22 copies of The Thinker made during Rodin's lifetime
14. Rodin Auguste, Catalogue of Ca' Pesaro Archived 25 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine
15. "Plaza del Congreso". Sitio oficial de turismo de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.
16. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
17. "www.barriada.com.ar - Mabel Crego - Estatua El Pensador de Rodin". www.barriada.com.ar.
18. Auguste Rodin, Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde
19. Michaud, Christopher (6 May 2010). "Sotheby's marks a solid night at Impressionist sale". Reuters. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
20. Labo (2 October 2012). "The valuing of exceptional paintings and works of art". Gilles Perrault. Archived from the original on 26 June 2015. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
21. "The Thinker Vandalized" The Cleveland Museum of Art
22. "A God Among Men". The Cleveland Free Times. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015.
23. The Thinker, Joconde Portail des collections des musées de France
24. "Le Penseur". Kunst in de openbare ruimte. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
25. "Auguste Rodin". Musée des Beaux-Arts Montréal. Archived from the original on 22 November 2013.
26. Auguste Rodin, The Thinker
27. "The enlarged Thinker: New posthumous bronze casts", penseur.org. Accessed 20 March 2013.
28. "MacLaren Art Centre - Media Releases - The Thinker Reviewed". Archived from the original on 8 January 2009. Retrieved 16 October 2010.
29. Barry, Dan; Rashbaum, William K. (20 May 2002). "Born of Hell, Lost After Inferno". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
30. City of Goldendale - Arts & Culture Archived 23 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine
31. Auguste Rodin — The Thinker
32. "PR: Martin Lawrence Galleries Delivers World-renowned Masterpieces to the Las Vegas Strip". OpenVegas. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
33. "The Thinker » Norton Simon Museum". www.nortonsimon.org.
34. Wander, Robin (24 January 2012). "The Thinker, one of the most famous works of art in the world, comes home to Stanford's Cantor Arts Center". Stanford Report. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
35. "Search View". ncartmuseum.org. Retrieved 14 July 2020.
36. "Photo of the Authorized replica in the Ricardo Brennand Institute".
37. "Instituto Ricardo Brennand abre no feriado de Páscoa" [Ricardo Brennand Institute opens on Easter holiday] (in Portuguese). Sim!. Archived from the original on 6 May 2007.
38. "Galeria de Fotos: Belém ganha exposição internacional de Camille Claudel" [Photo gallery: Bethlehem wins international exhibition of Camille Claudel] (in Portuguese). Portal ORM. 21 June 2006. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011.
39. "The Thinker (Enlarged)", National Museum of Western Art. Accessed 20 March 2013.
40. "Water Fountain Garden: The Thinker (Le Penseur)". Kyoto National Museum. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
41. "Museum Dictionary: Rodin's Thinker". Kyoto National Museum. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
42. "List of works at Rodin wing", Shizuoka Prefectural Art Museum. Accessed 20 March 2013.
43. "Donation of Rodin's The Thinker:A Generous Birthday Give [sic] to NTHU Archived 13 September 2014 at the Wayback Machine", National Tsing Hua University. Accessed 20 March 2013.

External links

• The Thinker project, Munich. Discussion of the history of the many casts of this artwork.
• Rodin: The B. Gerald Cantor Collection, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on The Thinker