"This book attempts to separate Camille's art from that of Rodin and to show its connections to the artistic and spiritual ideas of her brother, the poet Paul Claudel. Like her brother, Camille communicates in her art the "silence" of things. This "silence," however, is not an inarticulate void, a nothingness, an unlimited potentiality, as it is for Rodin, but it is communicative, actual, originative, and meaningful."

Camille Claudel, an old lady confined to the Asylum for the Insane in Montdevergues, France, reviews her life. She says, aI hope my memoir will illustrate the heights of passion Rodin and I reached, and unravel the mystery of why they were transformed into vinegar and ashes.a The tragedy is not only hers, she adds, but that of many female artists who found it impossible to achieve the success of men artists of lesser ability. The book illuminates her childhood and the rise of her career in the setting of her ecstatic life with Rodin. Their ten years of bliss are followed by the disintegration of her love for him, and its evolution into hatred and psychosis. The last third of the book describes the horrors of Claudelas life in the asylum, ending with the highly original manner in which she comes to terms psychologically with Rodin and the other important figures in her life.

Abundantly illustrated, this catalogue is a fascinating and comprehensive reevaluation of the French modernist sculptor Camille Claudel. Camille Claudel (1864–1943) was among the most daring and visionary sculptors of the late nineteenth century. Although much attention has been paid to her tumultuous life—her affair with her mentor, Auguste Rodin; the premature end to her career; her thirty-year institutionalization in an asylum—her art remains little known outside of France. Memorably praised by critic Octave Mirbeau in 1895 as “a revolt of nature: a woman of genius,” Claudel was celebrated for her brilliance during a time when women sculptors were rare. Featuring more than two hundred photographs along with contributions from leading experts, this publication accompanies the first comprehensive survey of Claudel’s oeuvre in nearly forty years. With essays exploring the many facets of her life, work, and reception; a biography; commentary by American sculptor Kiki Smith; and a fascinating appendix of documents written by Claudel and her contemporaries, this volume reevaluates the artist’s work on its own merits and repositions her legacy within a more complex genealogy of modernism. This volume, copublished with The Art Institute of Chicago, accompanies an exhibition on view at The Art Institute of Chicago from October 7, 2023, to February 19, 2024 and at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from April 2 to July 21, 2024.

Camille Claudel, sister of writer Paul Claudel, was a gifted nineteenth-century French sculptor who worked with Auguste Rodin, became his lover, and then left him to gain recognition for herself in the art world. With a strong sense of independence and a firm belief in her own considerable talent, Claudel created some extraordinary works of art and challenged the social and artistic limitations imposed upon the women of her time. Eventually, however, she crumbled beneath the combined weight of social reproof, deprivation, and art-world prejudices. Her family, distraught by her unconventional behavior as well as her delusions and paranoia, had her committed to a mental asylum, where she died thirty years later. Camille Claudel’s life has been romanticized in print and on film, but this is the first fully researched biography to present a rounded picture of the life and work of this remarkable woman. The book, also available in French, has been widely praised for its gripping presentation of the life of a woman artist in the nineteenth century, and for its successful attempt to free Claudel from the myths that had been woven around her. “The complete story of Claudel’s tragic life has never been thoroughly researched and recounted until now, and Ayral-Clause’s polished, to-the-point coverage is galvanizing… Fair and precise, Ayral-Clause’s clarion biography arouses the only reasonable response to Claudel’s saga: outrage.” — Booklist “Ayral-Clause commands much new data and an admirable objectivity. Highly recommended.” — Library Journal “… scholars will find this book, with its mastery of the sources in their original language, a welcome substitute for outdated previous studies…” — Publisher’s Weekly “By excavating Claudel from the edifice of victimization, Ayral-Clause frees us to focus on her work and the factors, both Rodin-and non-Rodin-related, that nurtured and hindered her career.” — Los Angeles Times “This is a fascinating biography… Using newly discovered private letters, family photographs and medical documents recently released to the public, the author provides the first serious, authoritative portrait of this brilliantly gifted, misunderstood artist.” — Umbrella “Ayral-Clause… resists dogmatic interpretation, choosing instead to view her protagonists as fully and as sympathetically as the evidence allows… Her straightforward narrative style offers a clear and vivid context for Claudel’s life and work.” — Art and Auction “Camille Claudel: A Life is riveting: measured, even-handed and revelatory. The author shows how we have absorbed the legend (Rodin exploited and deserted her), ignorant of the facts… Odile Ayral-Clause brilliantly illuminates Claudel’s vivacity and recounts her downfall.” — Art Quarterly (England) “The author has redefined the relationship between Camille Claudel, her environment and the art world, and brings to light the originality of the work of Camille Claudel in relation to Rodin’s” — L’Oeil (France)

After severing her relationship with Rodin.

"A fictionalized biography of current French feminist martyr Claudel (accomplished sculptor and lover of Rodin), whose ill-starred life has also been the subject of a 1989 movie, as well as a play by Delbee".--"Kirkus Reviews", August 5, 1992.