Aristide MAILLOL
1861–1944, France
Also known as: M
Maillol was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer, Roussillon. 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 with 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 of 1896, Maillol married Clotilde Narcisse, 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 was completed in 1902. That same year, dealer Ambroise Vollard provided Maillol with his first exhibition....
Aristide Maillol est artiste français né en 1861 et décédé en 1944. Il étudie à l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Aujourd’hui connu pour ses sculptures, il commence par peindre et devient proche des Nabis. En 1889, débute son amitié avec Antoine Bourdelle, puis inspiré par la sculpture antique, il se consacre à la sculpture. Dès 1895, il est fortement influencé par la figure de la femme, représentant des figures robustes et lisses. Ces femmes à la puissante corpulence marquent encore les esprits. Maillol n’est rattaché à aucun courant artistique particulier, néanmoins il innove dans sa manière de simplifier les formes. Parmi ses œuvres les plus célèbres, on retient Pomone, la Douleur, le Monument à Cézanne, la Baigneuse, l’Air, les Trois Grâces (au Jardin du Carrousel à Paris), le Torse du Printemps (au Musée d'Orsay à Paris, entre 1911 et 1912), ou encore la Montagne (au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 1937). En 1995, est inauguré le Musée Maillol à Paris, fondé par Dina Vierny qui fut le plus célèbre modèle de l’artiste.
Source: http://www.artprecium.com/