Camille Claudel was French sculptor best known for her bronze and marble depictions of figures in a craggy yet sensuous style, reminiscent to those of her lover Auguste Rodin. In perhaps what is her most famous sculpture, La Valse (The Waltz) (1889-1905), Claudel elegantly depicts a dancing couple’s embrace, capturing the flowing movement of both figures. “I am scared, I don't know what is going to happen to me. What was the point of working so hard and of being talented, to be rewarded like this?” she once asked. “Never a penny, tormented all my life. It is horrible, one cannot imagine it.” Born on December 8, 1864 in Fère-en-Tardenois, France, she studied under Alfred Boucher at the Académie Colarossi, it was through Boucher that Claudel first met Rodin and embarked on their ill-fated love affair. Overcome with grief from her failed relationship with Rodin, she fell into a pattern of depression and was even institutionalized for a period of time. Later, however, she broke away from Rodin’s shadow and established her own reputation, with subject matter that focused on everyday life, particularly portraits of women. She died on October 19, 1943 in Montdevergues, France. Today, Claudel’s works are in the collections of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., and the Philadelphia Museum of Art among others.