Philadelphia: Rodin Museum with Kids

–This part of our series on Philadelphia with kids. See more in the series at the bottom.–

We were passing by the Rodin Museum en route to the Eastern State Penitentiary, and I couldn’t resist dragging everyone over for a quick glance. It’s free (well, the garden is), and it’s not difficult to walk in and out of. Plus, it has the famed Thinker (see picture below) and the Gates of Hell, there since 1929.

The outdoor garden has eight sculptures, so a quick walk through will familiarize you with them. Inside are 140 scultptures cast in various materials. We didn’t make it inside. Aside from visiting the museum in college, my most recent Rodin encounters were from living in the San Francisco Bay Area and visiting the Rodin collection at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford. They also have the Thinker and Gates of Hell, but my kids were much younger when they last saw them.

 

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I convinced my son to come with me into the garden so he could see the Gates of Hell up close. I lured him by telling them there were demons and people dying and being tortured. It worked. He came and looked and tried to figure out what was what.  And then as promised, we left.

 

By Deborah Abrams Kaplan