Camille Claudel was a French sculptor and artist born in the winter of 1864. Much of her childhood was spent moving from place to place with her family in the northern France countryside. Her father worked with mortgages and banking. In 1881, Camille went with her mother and younger siblings to live in Paris. Her younger brother, Paul Claudel, would eventually become a poet and diplomat. Camille and her family were living in the artistic Montparnasse area of Paris.
During Camille's childhood, in the Villeneuve-sur-Fère region, she was inspired by the landscape and became passionate about stone and working with stone. Camille began studying at the Académie Colarossi, an academy founded by an Italian sculptor. There she was mentored by a sculptor named Alfred Boucher. Boucher was well loved by his students, but he passed on their instruction to Auguste Rodin. In 1884, Camille began working in Rodin's studio and she became his muse and lover. Their intimate relationship ended in 1892 when Rodin refused to end his relationship with his wife. Camille's mother did not approve of her daughter's involvement in the arts so Camille moved out. Claudel was successful even after breaking things off with Rodin. She did not need a man's influence of help to get attention for her artwork.
Camille began to appear mentally ill around 1905. She was destroying her own sculptures, disappearing randomly, and appearing paranoid. She was even known to accuse Rodin of stealing her ideas for new pieces of work and of plotting her death. Soon after her father's death in early 1913, Paul had Camille admitted into an asylum. Camille lived the last thirty years of her life in the asylum at Montfavet. Reports from the asylum stated that she suffered from systematic persecution delirium based on false interpretations and imagination. Over the years the staff at the asylum asked to have Camille released because they did not think that she was mentally unwell enough to be living there, but her family refused to have her released. Her mother only allowed Paul to write Camille letters and when Camille died in 1943, Paul was the only member of her family who could be with her when she passed.
At least ninety of Camille's sculptures and drawings survive today and Camille's life has inspired a few plays/ballets and movies. I am unsure as to why Camille is a heroine of France. Her life seems very interesting and probably the most heroic thing she did was to study art during a time when women could not even study art at the École des Beaux-Arts. She is surely inspirational for other female artists of that time.
More about Camille Claudel here!
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