The Convalescent

c. 1915-1925 · Painting

Particulars

1904–1914
Ten years of devotion to Rodin: thousands of letters
Her devotion to Rodin, the most famous artist of his time and 35 years older than her, continued unabated for the next ten years, as documented in her thousands of fervent letters to him. Given to fierce attachments to both men and women that were sometimes disturbing to them, she was eventually kept at a distance by Rodin, despite his genuine feeling for her, through the use of concierges and secretaries.
c. 1913
Received into the Catholic Church
As her affair with Rodin drew to a close she sought comfort in Roman Catholicism and around 1913 was received into the Church; her notebooks of the period include meditations and prayers, and her desire to be “God’s little artist” and to “become a saint”.
17 February 1913 – 19 May 1913
Exhibition: Armory Show
1919
Exhibition: Salon d'Automne
1926
Her only solo exhibition in her lifetime
Her only solo exhibition in her lifetime was held in 1926 at the New Chenil Galleries in London.
December 1926
Rilke’s death and a meeting with Jacques Maritain
In December 1926, distraught after the death of her old friend Rilke, she met her neighbour, the neo-Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain, and sought religious guidance from him.