Family of tragic artist Claudel sell last of her work
(Artdaily.org)

An `unprecedented` trove of sculptures by the brilliant but tragic French artist Camille Claudel are to go under the hammer in Paris next week. Claudel, whose life and tortured love affair with fellow sculptor Auguste Rodin has inspired several films and plays, destroyed much of her work before she was confined to a psychiatric hospital by her brother, the poet Paul Claudel, in 1913. Auction house Artcurial described the hoard of works in bronze, plaster and clay that come mostly from a studio Claudel kept in a barn next to the family home near Paris, as having an `unprecedented richness`. `This is an exceptional sale,` its art department director Bruno Jaubert told AFP. `We have a coherent collection from a flawless and rare source that`s of an unprecedented richness on the French market,` he added. By the time of her death in 1943, Claudel was all but forgotten, only for her reputation to roar back as critics hailed her lost genius in the 1980s.