A beautiful woman and highly talented sculptress in expressive and impressionist styles of figurative works, Camille Claudel had both successes and tragedies in her life. During her lifetime, she was better known as the mistress of Auguste Rodin than for her artistic skills, but posthumously she is increasingly recognized for her accomplishments. A film staring Isabelle Adjani helped to make Claudel "a popular heroine of our times."

Rodin was twenty-four years older than Camille Claudel, and the affair ended tragically when he took another mistress, Rose Beuret. Claudel had a nervous breakdown; her family placed her in a mental institution; and she lived there for 30 years prior to her death in 1943.

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