#116 Auguste Rodin & The Art of Ancient Egypt: A Conversation with Curator Carl Walsh

Saturday, February 21st Live on Zoom

10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence

One might have trouble imagining a connection between the works of the master French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) and the art of ancient Egypt.  However, Rodin was a great admirer of the art of antiquity and over the course of his life, he amassed a sizable collection of artifacts from Greece, Rome, and Egypt.  In his final years, Egypt became a particular source of fascination for Rodin and had a profound impact on the sculptor’s practice.  Celebrated as one of the founders of modern sculpture, Auguste Rodin crafted expressive bodies that abandoned narrative and embraced the subject and materiality of the medium.  At first glance, Rodin’s revolutionary approach to the human form seems very much at odds with the highly codified forms of ancient Egyptian sculpture. 

But the artist’s collection of Egyptian antiquities forms the heart of the exhibition Rodin’s Egypt, the very first exhibition in the United States dedicated to the masterpieces of Auguste Rodin’s Egyptian collection.  It is now on view through March 15, 2026, at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, in collaboration with the Musée Rodin in Paris.  In this conversation, I explore how the exhibition came together and reflect on how it reveals new perspectives on both Rodin’s sculpture and those from ancient Egypt.

Carl Walsh is an archaeologist and curator specializing in cross-cultural interactions in North Africa, Western Asia, and the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age.  He earned his BA in Egyptology from the University of Cambridge and PhD in Mediterranean and Western Asian archaeology from University College London.  Prior to becoming Assistant Curator at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in 2023, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University.

To RSVP: Paola50122@gmail.com

Minimum suggested donation: $28

This talk is free for Friends of Paola's Studiolo!

Look forward to seeing you on Zoom!