Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol (; December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French sculptor,

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, and

printmaker Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proce ...

.Le Normand-Romain, Antoinette . "Maillol, Aristide". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press. Web.

Biography

Maillol was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer,

Roussillon Roussillon ( , , ; ca, Rosselló ; oc, Rosselhon ) is a historical province of France that largely corresponded to the County of Roussillon and part of the County of Cerdagne of the former Principality of Catalonia. It is part of the reg ...

. He decided at an early age to become a painter, and moved to Paris in 1881 to study art. After several applications and several years of living in poverty, his enrollment in the École des Beaux-Arts was accepted in 1885, and he studied there under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Alexandre Cabanel. His early paintings show the influence of his contemporaries Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Paul Gauguin. Gauguin encouraged his growing interest in decorative art, an interest that led Maillol to take up tapestry design. In 1893 Maillol opened a tapestry workshop in Banyuls, producing works whose high technical and aesthetic quality gained him recognition for renewing this art form in France. He began making small terracotta sculptures in 1895, and within a few years his concentration on sculpture led to the abandonment of his work in tapestry. In July 1896, Maillol married Clotilde Narcis, one of his employees at his tapestry workshop. Their only son, Lucian, was born that October. Maillol's first major sculpture, ''A Seated Woman'', was modeled after his wife. The first version (in the Museum of Modern Art, New York) was completed in 1902, and renamed ''La Méditerranée''. Maillol, believing that "art does not lie in the copying of nature", produced a second, less naturalistic version in 1905. In 1902, the art dealer

Ambroise Vollard Ambroise Vollard (3 July 1866 – 21 July 1939) was a French art dealer who is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century. He is credited with providing exposure and emotio ...

provided Maillol with his first exhibition. KMM Maillol

The subject of nearly all of Maillol's mature work is the female body, treated with a classical emphasis on stable forms. The figurative style of his large bronzes is perceived as an important precursor to the greater simplifications of

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

, and his serene classicism set a standard for European (and American) figure sculpture until the end of World War II. Josep Pla said of Maillol, "These archaic ideas, Greek, were the great novelty Maillol brought into the tendency of modern sculpture. What you need to love from the ancients is not the antiquity, it is the sense of permanent, renewed novelty, that is due to the nature and reason." His important public commissions include a 1912 commission for a monument to Cézanne, as well as numerous war memorials commissioned after World War I. Maillol served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal (1919–1954) a grant awarded to painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers, and musicians. He made a series of woodcut illustrations for an edition of Vergil's '' Eclogues'' published by Harry Graf Kessler in 1926–27. He also illustrated '' Daphnis and Chloe'' by

Longus Longus, sometimes Longos ( el, Λόγγος), was the author of an ancient Greek novel or romance, ''Daphnis and Chloe''. Nothing is known of his life; it is assumed that he lived on the isle of Lesbos (setting for ''Daphnis and Chloe'') during ...

(1937) and ''Chansons pour elle'' by Paul Verlaine (1939). He died in Banyuls at the age of eighty-three, in an automobile accident. While driving home during a thunderstorm, the car in which he was a passenger skidded off the road and rolled over. A large collection of Maillol's work is maintained at the

Musée Maillol The Musée Maillol is an art museum located in the 7th arrondissement at 59–61, rue de Grenelle, Paris, France. History In 1964, Dina Vierny donated Maillol's monumental sculptures to the state. André Malraux, Minister of Culture, instal ...

in Paris, which was established by Dina Vierny, Maillol's model and platonic companion during the last 10 years of his life. His home a few kilometers outside Banyuls, also the site of his final resting place, has been turned into a museum, the

Musée Maillol Banyuls-sur-Mer The Musée Maillol de Banyuls-sur-Mer is a private museum at the farm of the sculptor Aristide Maillol where he spent the last years of his life. The farm, "La Métairie", is situated in the Roume valley 4 km from the city center of Banyul ...

, where a number of his works and sketches are displayed. Three of his bronzes grace the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City: ''Summer'' (1910–11), ''Venus Without Arms'' (1920), and'' Kneeling Woman: Monument to Debussy'' (1950–55). The third, the artist's only reference to music, is a copy of an original created for the French city of Saint-Germain-en-Laye,

Claude Debussy (Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...

's birthplace.

Nazi-looted art

During the German occupation of France, dozens of artworks by Maillol were seized by the Nazi looting organization known as the E.R.R. or Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce. Th
Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume
lists thirty artworks by Maillol. The German Lost Art Foundation database lists 33 entries for Maillol. The German Historical Museum's database for artworks recovered by the Allies at the Munich Central Collecting Point has 13 items related to Maillol. Maillol's sculpture "Head of Flora" was found in the stash of Cornelius Gurlitt, son of Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt together with lithographs, drawings and paintings. A photograph from May 24, 1946 shows "Six men, members of the Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives section of the military, prepare Aristide Maillol's sculpture ''Baigneuse à la draperie'', looted during World War II for transport to France. Sculpture is labeled with sign: Wiesbaden, no. 31." Jewish art collectors whose artworks by Maillol were looted by Nazis include Hugo Simon,

Alfred Flechtheim Alfred Flechtheim (1 April 1878 – 9 March 1937) was a German Jewish art dealer, art collector, journalist and publisher persecuted by the Nazis. Early years Flechtheim was born into a Jewish merchant family; his father, Emil Flechtheim, was a g ...

and many others.

Works

* ''

Action in Chains ''Action in Chains'' is a 1905 bronze sculpture by Aristide Maillol. The original called ''Monument to Blanqui'' was commissioned by Louis Auguste Blanqui, and resides at the Puget-Théniers, for which it was originally commissioned. Seconda ...

'' (1905) * '' Flora, Nude'' (1910) * '' L'Été sans bras'' (1911) *'' Bathing Woman with Raised Arms'' (1921) * '' Nymph'' (1930) * '' The Mountain'' (1937) * '' L'Air'' (1938) * '' The River'' (1938–43) * Mme Henry Clemens van de Velde (c. 1899)

References

Sources

* Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, "Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944", New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1975. * Frèches-Thory, Claire, & Perucchi-Petry, Ursula, ed.: ''Die Nabis: Propheten der Moderne'', Kunsthaus Zürich & Grand Palais, Paris & Prestel, Munich 1993 (German), (French)

External links