Location Map

 Artist: August Rodin
Dedicated: 1929
Location: Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 22nd Street

August Rodin's The Thinker evolved from his 1889 work Gates of Hell, a depiction of Dante's inferno. Rodin took the element of Dante from the larger composition and reworked it as The Thinker, The Poet. Between 1902 and 1904 he created an enlarged version. The Thinker has since become an enduring example of the power of creative thought. The bronze overlooking Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway is one of several castings made of this work.