French artist and noted family, the sister of the noted poet Paul Claudel. She showed talent for clay modeling at an early age, which she preferred to drawing. When she was age twelve, the family moved to Nogent-sur-Seine. Camille’s father brought his daughter’s work to the attention of sculptor Boucher who was impressed with the young girl’s aptitude. She entered the Académie Colarossi, one of the few art academies open to female students and eventually joined a group of three other women sculptors, taking informal lessons from Boucher who visited the women’s studio once a week.
When Boucher moved to Italy , Rodin assumed responsibility for his four students. She was then 19 and a great beauty, and he, 43. She quickly evolved into Rodin’s collaborator and muse. Camille soon became Rodin’s mistress as well as student, a fifteen-year-long relationship that would leave an indelible influence on her technique and subject matter. The years when Claudel served as Rodin’s studio assistant were the master sculptor’s most productive; for Camille they were both the most instructive and, perhaps, the most destructive in terms of establishing a career independent from Rodin. Eventually she became recognized as an exceptional artist in her own right. It was rumored that she bore Rodin two sons, but there are major gaps in her recorded history. They separated in 1898, as he refused to leave his longtime companion Rose Beuret.
Although Claudel continued to sculpt, she began to experience financial hardship. During this decade she also began showing signs of mental illness, Slowly going mad in the early 20th century, she was convinced that Rodin was trying to kill her. She systematically set out to destroy her works, smashing many of them with a hammer in 1906. On 3/10/1913 she was locked up in an institution for the insane where she spent her 30 remaining years, dying on 10/19/1943, Avignon, France.
A film, “Camille Claudel,” with Isabelle Adjani and Gerard Depardieu was produced in 1988.
Link to Wikipedia biography