Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland gains long-term loan of 14 Auguste Rodin sculptures

Visitors to the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College will find a surprise.

Three bronze pieces from one of the world’s most revered sculptors, Auguste Rodin, are on display in the Hollis Gallery, with the promise of more to come.

The Lakeland museum has secured a multi-year partnership to display 14 bronzes by the French sculptor, whose work it exhibited last year. The other 11 pieces will be installed in phases over the next year, leading to the opening of a major expansion in fall 2024.

The museum announced a partnership with the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, considered the largest holder and lender of Rodin sculptures in the United States. The agreement allows the museum to display the sculptures through January 2026.

The Cantor Foundation previously lent more than 40 of Rodin’s works for a four-month exhibition at the Polk Museum of Art in 2022, “Rodin: Contemplation and Dreams.” The display proved to be one of the most popular the museum has ever presented, said H. Alexander Rich, the museum’s executive director and chief curator.

“When this opportunity crossed our paths, we leapt at it,” Rich said. “This is something that is great for the museum but also really beneficial to the community. Everyone adored the Rodin exhibition, and it seemed like people just couldn't get enough. So we decided to give them more of it.”

The Cantor Foundation allowed the Polk Museum of Art to select the 14 bronzes from among all the Rodin sculptures it had in storage, Rich said. Most of the 14 are large pieces, though a few smaller works will be displayed on pedestals, he said.

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The first three sculptures on exhibition are among the larger pieces: a male torso, a depiction of the French landscape painter Claude Lorrain and a piece called “The Three Shades,” based on figures in Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”

The sculptures will be placed throughout the current museum building and in the new space that will open next fall, Rich said. Construction began in May on a 14,000-square-foot expansion, adjoining the existing structure on the northwest side.

“The idea is to have visitors led through the buildings with the Rodins, and so we're actually calling it ‘Rodin at the Polk,’” Rich said. “Obviously, right now we have limited gallery space, so we don’t have all 14 on view. But that's the promise of the new building is that we will have a lot more space to showcase artwork like this. And this sets a really wonderful precedent for us and for our audiences, to know what the museum is all about, with a great mix of works of art they're familiar with and then works of art that they will discover as they come through the museum.”

Rodin, whose career stretched from the 1850s to the early 20^th century, is among the world’s most recognized artists. His signature work, “The Thinker,” is familiar even to whose who never studied art.

“I am thrilled that our community has an opportunity to experience these world-acclaimed works of legendary artist Auguste Rodin,” Florida Southern College President Anne B. Kerr said in a news release. “The longer-term residency of these works is a major benefit to our community and is a testament to the quality of leadership of the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College and the combination of serving as both a community and academic art museum of the highest caliber.”

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.