The French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was born on 12 November 1840 in Paris.

He attended the Petite Ecole, a state-run school of arts and crafts and was rejected three times by the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts.

In 1864 he created his first important work "Man with the Broken Nose". In the next years he worked on decorative sculptures in the studio of Albert Carrier-Belleuse.

A first trip to Italy, where he studied the works of Michelangelo, Donatello and the sculptures of the classical antiquity, was made in 1875. This trip inspired him for his "L'Age d'airain" ("The Age of Bronze") in 1877. Critics were incensed by the naturalistic treatment of nude figure, and accused him of casting it from a live model, but later the controversy gained Rodin the patronage of the government.

In 1880 Rodin received his first state commission, for "The Gates of Hell" and created "The Thinker". Three years later Rodin met the sculptress Camille Claudel, who inspired him to create many works, including "The Kiss" (1886). Other major commissions were "The Burghers of Calais" (1884), the statue of Victor Hugo for the Panthéon in Paris (1888) and the statue of Balzac (1891).

In 1895 Rodin moved to the Villa des Brillants in Meudon, Paris. During the world exhibition of 1900 in Paris, he created his own pavilion. At the end of his life he bequeathed his entire estate to the French State. A year later he married Rose Beuret on 29 January 1917 and died later that year on 18 November.

Two years later the Rodin Museum in Paris opened its doors.