Multiple women\u2013\u2013as art collectors, critics, and agents\u2013\u2013played a major role in his growing recognition. Art collector Katherine Seney Simpson formed a strong bond with Rodin and assembled in a few years’ time an impressive collection of his works. Famous dancer and choreographer Lo\u00efe Fuller, also a close friend of Rodin\u2019s, became his agent in the US, serving as an intermediary between the artist and American art collectors and museums. \u00a0<\/p>\n Auguste Rodin (French, 1840\u20131917), The Thinker, original model 1881\u201382, enlarged 1903. Bronze, cast by Alexis Rudier, 1928. Baltimore Museum of Art. Jacob Epstein Collection, 1930.25.1<\/p>\n\t\t<\/figcaption>\n\t<\/figure>\n In the early 20th century, many American museums began to build important collections of Rodin\u2019s work. In 1912, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened a gallery entirely dedicated to the artist\u2013\u2013the first gallery dedicated to a living artist at the time. American museums continued to collect Rodin’s work after his death in 1917, \u00a0thanks to the generosity of art collectors such as Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, who helped create a collection for the Legion of Honor of San Francisco; Samuel Hill, who founded the Maryhill Museum in Goldehale with 18 of Rodin\u2019s artworks; and, Jules Mastbaum, who recreated Paris’ Rodin Museum in Philadelphia. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n Although Rodin fell into disgrace in the 1940s, his reputation was reevaluated in 1954 when the Museum of Modern Art acquired his Monument to Balzac, which\u00a0Alfred Barr, the museum’s director, described as \u201cone of the most important sculptures of all occidental art history.” From that point on, Rodin\u2019s influence in the US was fully established. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/villa-albertine.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/RS.10.2_BMA_The20Thinker28129_0.jpg\")
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