He sits on the front of the course catalog, graces the cover of the admissions brochure and adorns the Showcase section of this magazine. But Auguste Rodin’s Thinker is not on campus. Not this year, anyway. He’s touring galleries in Australia and Southeast Asia, leaving behind a remarkably naked pedestal on the west side of Meyer Library.
The Thinker’s globe-trotting has increased in recent years, since the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, which co-owns the statue with Stanford, began to organize traveling exhibitions of Rodin sculpture. “It’s part of the mission of all museums to lend out and share art with the world,” explains Noreen Ong, associate registrar for loans and exhibitions at Stanford’s Cantor Center for the Visual Arts.
One of 21 authorized full-size casts of the work, Stanford’s Thinker is expected to return to the Farm next fall, unless his overseas public clamors for a longer stay. Until then, campus fans will have to be content with the Rodin Sculpture Garden’s Gates of Hell—upon which sits a miniature Thinker.
