Camille Claudel Auguste Rodin As a 19-year-old in Paris,was already a promising student of the most famous sculptor of the day:. Before long, her own work would appear in the city’s well-regarded Salon d’Automne and Salon des Indépendants. By any measure, her young career was off to an auspicious start.

When she died in 1943, however, Claudel’s legacy was all but forgotten. The artist was buried in an anonymous public grave; when her nephew attempted to move her body to the family tomb following the conclusion of World War II, he was informed that it would be impossible to find.

For decades, Claudel’s work was as lost to time as her final resting place. Then, in 1984, the Musée Rodin staged a runaway exhibition of her sculptures. Suddenly, the world couldn’t get enough of the woman who had been both protégé and mistress to Rodin. She has since been the subject of multiple films—first in 1988, in the Academy Award-nominated Camille Claudel, then in 2013, and again in an upcoming Rodin biopic—as well as a 2012 play.

These dramatizations of Claudel’s life have often privileged her tragic romance with Rodin over her artistic talent. But now, the focus is once again on her evocative sculptures. In March, a museum featuring the world’s largest collection of Claudel’s work opened in Nogent-sur-Seine, France (located some 70 miles southeast of Paris), which is where her artistic career began.