This new monograph examines the life and works of Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), whose compelling career and legacy continue to captivate audiences, artists and critics alike. As one of the greatest and most prolific sculptors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Rodin transformed sculpture-making and reinvigorated what was considered to be a dying art form. Born into a working-class family, Rodin had little formal education in the fine arts and struggled against poverty throughout his career. At an early age, he attended the Petite Ecole, a school for drawing and mathematics, learning skills aimed at the commercial sector. Then, having failed the entrance examinations for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts three times, Rodin supported himself by working for several commercial studios as an assistant for a few years. In 1863, devasted by the death of his beloved sister, Maria, the artist joined a religious community, the Order of the Blessed Sacrament, which was under the direction of Father Pierre-Julien Eymard, who would become the subject of one of Rodin's first sculptures. Realizing that religion was not his calling, Rodin returned to Paris, where he began to work in the studios of Albert Carrier-Belleuse, a fashionable commercial sculptor, who was to have a considerable impact on the art and career of the young sculptor. At this time, Rodin also began to work on his own, creating portraits of his father and studying the works of Rubens. After a trip to Italy in 1875, Rodin also studied the works of Michelangelo, whose influence was crucial to his development and his determination to be a sculptor. Rodin's signature style of working directly from the model was formed early with his "Man with the Broken Nose", which was rejected for the Salon exhibition in 1865, although the marble version was accepted ten years later. Rodin then created "The Age of Bronze", the first work in which a sense of his true potential can be seen. The originality of this work was met with