Camille Claudel by Monica Lundy
This gouache and charcoal portrait by the fascinating artist, Monica Lundy, hanging in the Turner-Carroll Gallery here, is one of the many haunted and haunted faces she drew after reading through the files at the long-closed Santa Maria della Pietà in Rome, which is now a museum-I wonder what it exhibits. Not, it seems, the history of the atrocities committed there, largely against women, who for decades at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth were incarcerated there, for long periods and against their wills. None of them, Lundy learned, had suffered from psychiatric illness but from being “inappropriate” contrasted to what was expected of a woman in that time and place. An indication of the “treatment” they were given is shown in Lundy’s sketches of the medicine bottles she found: mercury cyanide, mercury chloride and tincture of belladonna (deadly nightshade.)The sketches are burnt into paper with a soldering iron.
Sculpture of August Rodin by Camille Claudel
My novel, based in part on her life, called An Old House in Paris, remains unpublished, partly because Claudel was a forgotten figure at the time, and partly because I was distracted by Rodin’s house in Paris, now the Musée Rodin, where so much of her story happened. But a lot of other things happened there too over two hundred years, some of them almost as fascinating, and I allowed myself to be drawn off the track. This was at the beginning of my training as a biographer; a new rule: don’t get distracted! Perhaps slightly more acceptable for a fiction writer where byways of the imagination may lead to other stories.
Now, as I wait to hear whether my proposal for my next biography attracts a publisher in big-time New York, I am so glad to be preparing to write about an even earlier woman who made a great success of her life through talent, persistence and in spite of many advantages—and many attacks. We need to hear now about women who prevailed in the face of the enormous obstacles we still face today: this is the story I want to write, released from Claudel’s now that she has been, after many years, recognized for the artist she was and is.
I love what you’re doing, Sallie. This is fascinating.
XXX, Linda
That picture of her indeed looks haunted. And she was both beautiful and—judging by the sculpture of Rodin—incredibly gifted. I hope you finish this biography because I would love to read it!
Oh, please, Sally, go back your early bio of Claudel. Tales of talented women of the past needed to be retrieved, and their stories of being stifled and betrayed need to be exposed. Who knows how many there may be?
Yes, Sallie. Claudine Claudel haunts ALL of us! We need YOUR biography of her. And we need you, going about your business. Thank you for that.
Enid Yandell was the first woman member to join the national sculpture society in 1898.
She trained with Rodin and MacMonnies.
Not a frequenter of The Computer, or as I call it, The Dreadful Machine, I only today finally googled you, Sallie Bingham, and decided to check out your blog. Exciting — your blog about Camille Claudell. Oh, yes, what heartbreaking wrongs were done to her. Back in 1977, after I had moved to San Francisco/Berkeley, I learned for the FIRST time that there had always been women visual artists. If you’d lit a match to me you’d have heard the blast clear across the country. Talk about FURIOUS that in all my years of schooling, university and museum traipsing I had only once seen a work by a woman artist, that I’d been deprived of all that knowledge and inspiration from having been told about women being visual artists, oh, yes, I was angry. But I was equally THRILLED. I read everything that feminist art historians/artists put out in books and joined the feminist women artists in the Bay Area. I gave a photographer in the women’s community a massage in exchange for info about what camera to buy, and began making my own slide collection by taking pics with available light from our new books. I told the stories of the women’s lives and times (from a feminist perspective) and showed my slides to anyone who wanted to hear/see these jewels of everyone’s complete h/erstory. I taught a class here and there. Camille Claudell is one of many women (whom we still know about) whose lives were dreadful in the extreme but who managed to become wonderful artists. My favorite sculpture of hers is The Gossips. Oooh, my. That sums up the society she faced and her family as well in one image. She began sculpting, in her own style — kin to the way Roden sculpted, when she was just a girl, playing in the mud with her brother Claude who, being male, became an acclaimed playwright and lifted not one finger to help his hugely talented sister. Her style did not come from her exposure (ahem) to Rodin. Have y’all seen Camille C’s piece of the old woman who was a servant for her family, done when CC was young? Gorgeous, and in the style of the other sculptor who got his name known and later his name in the art “history” books. Thanks to feminists, I was given knowledge that has remained a lifelong thrill. I find it hard to stop talking about these things. As you can see. Sallie B., I’ll be getting your CC bio at the library here in Lexington (KY) today and, if they don’t yet own it, I’ll be requesting that they buy it ASAP — I can’t wait another minute to read it. I so miss now being among people who also love women’s achievements in spite of it all. Your book will be a much welcome conversation about that.
Ooops, I see that I got your blog wrong — what you wrote about Camille Claudell was a blog, not a book about her. There are one or two bios that I know about, and perhaps others that match up to feminist standards, so I won’t ask you to write another about Camille C. Meanwhile I’ll go look for your book about Doris Duke.
Thank you for sharing Camille’s story. She was a brilliant artist. And her life such a tragic 30 year ending. I’ve only learned recently the young poet Rainer Maria Rilke lived and worked in Rodin’s studio as his secretary. What interesting conversations those three must have had.
In 2017 the Musée Camille Claudel opened in her home town in France. Devoted to her work.