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Camille ClaudelCamille Claudel was born in Fère-en-Tardenois, Aisne, in northern France, the second child of a family of farmers and gentry. Her father, Louis-Prosper, dealt in mortgages and bank transactions. Her mother, the former Louise Cerceaux, came from a Champagne family of Catholic farmers and priests. Camille Claudel spent her childhood in Villeneuve-sur-Fère, in Bar-le-Duc (1870), Nogent-sur-Seine (1876), and Wassy-sur-Blaise (1879). She later moved with her family to Paris in 1881. The family lived at 135 Boulevard du Montparnasse. In order to further her training as a sculptor, she studied at the Académie Colarossi, 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière, with the sculptor Alfred Boucher. In 1882, the Claudel family moved to 111 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs and Camille Claudel rented a workshop with young women, most of them English, including Jessie Lipscomb at number 117 of the same street.
At this time, women were barred from studying at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1883, she met Auguste Rodin, who taught sculpture to Camille Claudel and her friends. Probably in 1884, she started working in Rodin's workshop. She also became his source of inspiration, his model, his confident and lover, while Rodin lived with Rose Beuret. They are said to have had two children, though Rodin refused to recognize his paternity. Their relationship became known, and this caused Camille Claudel problems with her family, especially with her mother, who had never completely agreed with her career choice. As a consequence, she had to leave the family house. From then on, she lived alone. She never lived with Rodin, who did not want to end his twenty-year relationship with Rose Beuret. In 1892, probably after an unwished abortion, she broke up with Auguste Rodin, although they would continue seeing each other regularly until 1898. From 1903 onward, she exhibited her works either at the Salon des Artistes français or at the Salon d'Automne.
From 1905 on, at age 41, she showed mental problems: She destroyed most of her statues, disappeared regularly for quite long periods of time, and suffered from paranoia, which made her accuse Rodin of stealing her ideas and of leading a conspiracy to kill her. After the wedding of her brother (1906) who had supported her until then, and his return to China after a stay in France, Camille Claudel lived completely secluded in her workshop. Her father, who had always believed in her, had tried to help her and had supported her financially, died on March 2, 1913. Camille Claudel was not informed of it. On March 10, at the initiative of her mother, she was forcibly interned at the psychiatric hospital of Ville-Évrard in Neuilly-sur-Marne. Camille Claudel was committed by the signatures of a single doctor and her mother. In August 1914, at the beginning of World War I, she was transferred to Enghien, and on September 9, 1914, to the Hôpital de Montdevergues, in Montfavet, near Avignon. For a while, a press campaign accussed the family of having committed her against her will. In May or June 1915, Camille Claudel received a visit of her brother and based on her medical file, it was regularly proposed to her family that Camille be released, but her mother adamantly refused each time. On one occasion, on June 1, 1920, the physician, Dr. Brunet, sent a letter advising her mother to try to reintegrate her daughter into her family environment. Her mother also forbade her to receive mail from anybody else other than her brother Paul Claudel. She received further visits from her brother in 1920, in March or April 1925, in August 1927, in August 1928. Her mother died on June 20, 1929. She received a visit from Jessie Lipscomb in the same year. She received a last visit from her brother in September 1943, and died on October 19, 1943, after having spent 30 years in mental hospitals, without receiving a single visit from her mother nor from her sister. During this time, her brother Paul used to refer to her using the past tense. At this time she was almost completely forgotten.
She did not create anything while at the hospital, and some biographies have even announced her death in 1920. She was interred in the cemetery of Montfavet on October 21, 1943.
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