Henry Tonks

Auguste Rodin

1914

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On loan

Wolsey Art Gallery (Ipswich, UK): Rodin's The Kiss

Artist: Henry Tonks 1862–1937
Medium: Pastel on paper
Dimensions: Support: 537 x 400 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Viscount D'Abernon through the Contemporary Art Society 1915
Reference: N03017

Catalogue entry

N03017 AUGUSTE RODIN 1914

Not inscribed.
Pastel, 21 1/8×15 3/4 (53·5×40).
Presented by Viscount D'Abernon through the Contemporary Art Society 1915.
Exh: N.E.A.C., winter 1914 (166).
Lit: Hone, 1939, p.113.
Repr: Studio, CXIII, 1937, p.87.

This and N03018 were done in the early weeks of the First World War, when the Rodins were staying as refugees with Mr and Mrs Charles Hunter at Hill Hall, near Epping. Hone writes that ‘the likenesses were good; but Tonks did not disguise his disappointment with Rodin. “Why I have never heard him say anything except ‘Dieu, que les arbres sont beaux’.”’ Rodin was then in his seventy-third year and had become a little senile.

Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II