Aristide Maillol – An artist’s career against his parent’s wishes
Aristide Maillol was born on 8 December 1861 in the small French municipality of Banyuls-sur-Mer on the coast of the Golfe du Lion near the Spanish border. Predominantly Catalan was spoken there, and Maillol’s French retained a strong accent his whole life. He was the fourth of five children of a vintner and cloth merchant, and decided already as a school student in art lessons to pursue a career as an artist, but met incomprehension from his family with this. Having just turned 20, Aristide Maillol thus moved to Paris, the artist’s city, where he initially took a drawing course at the École des Beaux-Arts with the sculptor and painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. His teacher was so impressed with Maillol’s clear talent, that he recommended he move to the Decorative Arts School. There, Maillol took his first sculpture course, but after only a few months he returned to the École des Beaux-Arts, where he was then taught by the history painter Alexandre Cabanel.
Penniless painter, carpet weaver and sculptor in Paris
Aristide Maillol lived for almost two years as a penniless fine artist in Paris. He did not follow the example of his teacher Cabanel with his paintings, but oriented himself on Paul Gauguin, whom he knew personally, as well as Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. Despite this, he was no longer satisfied with painting; it seemed to him too academic, and he turned to the production of wall hangings. For this purpose, he set up a studio in his hometown of Banyuls where he employed several local women as weavers. In doing so, he met Clotilde Narcis, whom he married in 1896 and together they had his only child Lucien. Maillol earnt a living for his small family from the production of stucco work, but he continued to devote himself to his art, and often placed his wife as model at the centre of his paintings, textile art and sculpture. Around the turn of the century, interest grew in Maillol’s art, and he was active as a painter, printmaker, carpet designer and sculptor, and created his most famous work, the life-size female nude, La Méditerranée, which would become formative for his further creativity.
Voluptuous compact female nudes as main subject
In his famous sculptures, Aristide Maillol did away with the elaboration of details or individual characteristics. The artist’s muses and models were of great importance to him – his wife remained the most important, but far from the only one. His most famous model was the French art dealer Dine Vierby, who served the artist’s estate well and ensured the ongoing fame of Aristide Maillol even after his death. Maillol’s most significant patron was Harry Count von Kessler, who commissioned him at their very first meeting to create the famous stone sculpture La Méditerranée. Maillol’s close relationship with Kessler and his lack of fear of the German occupiers earned the artist accusations of collaboration during the German occupation.
Aristide Maillol died in Banyuls-sur-Mer on 27 September 1944 in a car accident. His influence on modernist sculpture included artists such as Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Arno Breker and Henry Moore. Some of his works were shown posthumously at the first and third Documenta in Kassel.
Aristide Maillol - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz: