Which Rodin sculpture was modeled from the writer Bernard Shaw’s head?

Rodin’s Bust of George Bernard Shaw was modeled from the head of the writer George Bernard Shaw.

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, critic, and public intellectual who became one of the most prominent literary figures in Britain. Rodin made a portrait bust of Shaw, capturing the writer’s distinctive head and facial features rather than presenting him in a full-length monument.

The portrait belongs to Rodin’s broader practice of making commissioned and informal portraits of notable contemporaries. His sitters included writers, artists, politicians, and members of wealthy European and American families. Portraiture was important to Rodin’s career because it provided commissions while also allowing him to investigate character through the structure and surface of the face.

This work is not the same as Rodin’s monuments to Victor Hugo or Honoré de Balzac. Those projects concerned major French literary figures and involved more ambitious public or symbolic schemes. Shaw’s portrait is a bust, making the sitter’s head and shoulders the central subject.