Aristide Maillol was one of the most famous sculptors of his day. His work, based on ample forms developed from the female nude but simplified to the extreme of a pure outline, is silent and represents a true artistic revolution that would lead to the emergence of abstraction. Maillol’s artistic creation represents a turning point between the 19th and 20th century and influenced a significant number of artists including Henry Moore, Arp or Laurens but also found echoes in the work of Picasso, Brancusi and Matisse. Maillol’s work was praised…
Aristide Maillol was one of the most famous sculptors of his day. His work, based on ample forms developed from the female nude but simplified to the extreme of a pure outline, is silent and represents a true artistic revolution that would lead to the emergence of abstraction. Maillol’s artistic creation represents a turning point between the 19th and 20th century and influenced a significant number of artists including Henry Moore, Arp or Laurens but also found echoes in the work of Picasso, Brancusi and Matisse. Maillol’s work was praised by many great writers such as Octave Mirbeau and André Gide as well as stimulating publications by eminent art critics including Waldemar George and John Rewald.
Maillol began his career with painting and became interested very early on in decorative arts such as ceramics and tapestry. But it was only at the age of forty that he decided to devote himself to sculpture. Born in the Pyrénées-Orientales in 1861, Maillol remained loyal to his Mediterranean origins all his life.
After his studies in Perpignan, he moved to Paris in 1882. His first years there were difficult. He discovered the tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn at the museum of Cluny in Paris and decided to open his own weaving workshop in Banuyls. His paintings were initially greatly influenced by his contemporaries including Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. In Paris, he joined the Nabis group where he rubbed shoulders with Bonnard, Vuillard and Maurice Denis. His meeting with Gauguin in 1892 was decisive.
The year 1900 marked a turning point in Maillol’s work. During this year, he invented a genuine repertoire of shapes, anticipating his works to come. His first wooden sculptures as well as his models made of raw earth or clay, such as Venus or the Baigneuses Debout, Accroupies, se Coiffant evoked ancient Greek sculptures. The perfection of Leda’s forms impressed Rodin as well as Mirbeau who acquired it in 1902 from a highly successful exhibition at the Vollard gallery.
When Maillol exhibited the plaster of the Mediterranée at the Salon d’Automne of 1905, with the Fauve painters, the show was a triumph. The monumental sculpture represents a seated woman, absorbed in her own thoughts, whose elbow resting on her knee and head supported by her hand form a geometric composition. André Gide described the sculpture saying: “she is beautiful, she does not mean anything, it is a silent work”. This medidative figure, where no individual expression detracts from the overall vision, is a major work, whose smooth architectural structure is symbolic of Maillol’s research.
After the death in 1917 of Rodin, whose sculptural style was always said to be the opposite of Maillol’s, Maillol became the greatest living French sculptor. In the 1930s Maillol represented the renewal of sculpture and produced the Monument à Debussy, with its exquisite soft curves. In 1934, while looking for new forms of inspiration, Maillol met Dina Vierny. This young girl incarnated his ideal in sculpture and became his main model for ten years. She became his muse, his interlocutor and his collaborator. It was she who inspired his late monumental sculptures such as La Montagne, in 1937, that completed a cycle previously started at the beginning of the century, or L’Air, in 1938, a memorial to the Aéropostale aviators, as well as La Rivière, representing a female body tilted backwards who struggles to resist the flowing water that is dragging her relentlessly away and whose face reveals some form of fear. La Rivière was the first sculpture ever representing a person lying on her back, in an unstable equilibrium. This position can be perceived as an allegory of the troubled times that were to come in the Second World War during which Maillol went back to Banyuls-sur-Mer.
After being given two retrospectives in New York and in Basel in 1933, Maillol won international recognition during the universal exhibition of 1937 in Paris where several rooms were dedicated to his work. Maillol began working on Harmonie, his final sculpture, in 1940. With this unfinished sculpture, Maillol reached the pinnacle of his career. The female silhouette, slightly lopsided, reminds us of medieval sculpture and symbolises a synthesis of all his formal research. But contrary to his previous works, it is also a portrait.
Maillol died in 1944 following a car accident, close to his home town, leaving behind him a considerable body of work that we can admire in Paris, in the provinces and abroad. In the Tuileries garden, eighteen sculptures, offered in 1964 by Dina Vierny under the auspices of André Malraux, are exhibited. In 1995, Dina Vierny created a museum in Paris dedicated to his work, the Maillol museum, inaugurated in 1995 by François Mitterand.
By using a synthetic vision, based on the arrangement of masses that marked a radical break from the descriptive art of the 19th century, Maillol paved the way for abstract sculpture, as Cezanne did for painting. From the outset Maillol attempted to capture immobility in sculpture and achieved perfection in the proportions of his statues whether small or monumental. The eternal beauty of Maillol’s work, in the tradition of Jean Goujon or Edmé Bouchardon, reminds us of the figures around the pools, fountains and gardens of Versailles, and establishes Maillol as one of the greatest French artists.
Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). La quête de l’harmonie, musée d’Orsay, Paris (April 11 – August 21) ; Kunsthaus, Zurich (October 7 – January 22, 2023), La piscine – Musée d’art et d’industrie André Diligent, Roubaix (February 18, 2023 – May 21, 2023)
Maillol. La Forme libre, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (January 25 – March)
Maillol dessins, Musée Maillol, Banyuls-sur-Mer (June 24 – October 30)
Maillol et la Grèce, musée Marès, Barcelone (April 27 – January 31, 2016)
Maillol, de la ligne au volume, musée Toulouse Lautrec, Albi (April 6 – July 6, 2014)
Maillol, Kunsthal, Rotterdam (September 15 – February 10, 2013)
Maillol, Fundació Caixa Catalunya – La Pedrera, Barcelona (October 19 – January 31, 2010)
Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944, Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, Apolda (September 3 -November 20) ; Städtische Galerie in der Reithalle Paderborn-Schloss Neuhaus, Paderborn (Decemeber 3 – March 5, 2006)
Maillol and America, Marlborough Gallery, New York (October 27 – November 27)
Aristide Maillol en Madrid, Marlborough Gallery, Madrid (February 6 – March 8)
Aristide Maillol, IVAM, Valence (February 5 – March 19)
Maillol peintre, Fondation Dina Vierny – Musée Maillol, Paris (June 6 – October 29)
Maillol and Dina, Marlborough Fine Art, London (May 3 – June 22)
Aristide Maillol , Palais des Congrès, Perpignan (June 10 – September 10)
Aristide Maillol, Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung (January 14 – May 19)
Aristide Maillol, Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin (January 14 – May 5) ; musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (May 15 – September 22) ; Gerhard Marks-Haus, Bremen (October 6 – January 13, 1997) ; Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim (January 25, 1997 – March 31, 1997)
Maillol. Esculturas, Pinacothèque, Sao Paulo (October 21 – November 30) ; Espace Culturel, Banque SAFRA, Sao Paulo (December 4 – January 10,1997)
Maillol, la passion du bronze, Fondation Dina Vierny – Musée Maillol, Paris (December 13 – March 30, 1996)
Maillol, Musée de l’Annonciade, Saint-Tropez (July 9 – September 26)
Maillol, Mitsukoshi Art Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo (September 10 – October 16) ; Hakodate Art Museum, Hakodaté (October 29 – December 25) ; Takamatsu Municipal Museum of Fine Arts, Takamatsu (February 24, 1995 – March 26, 1995) ; Akita Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Akita (April 9, 1995 – May 21, 1995) ; Chiba Museum of Art, Chiba (May 27, 1995 – July 2, 1995) ; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima (July 22, 1995 – September 10, 1995) ; Himeji Municipal Museum of Art, Himeji (September 16, 1995 – October 15, 1995)
El Escultor Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, Museo Nacional de San Carlos, Mexico (October 13 – January 15, 1995)
Maillol, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris
Aristide Maillol, Departmental Museum of Fine Arts, Yamanashi (April 7 – May 6) ; Hiroshima Museum of Fine Arts, Hiroshima (May 12 – June 17) ; Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Kumamoto (June 23 – July 29) ; Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Kanazawa (August 4 – 27) ; Ehime Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Matsuyama (September 8 – 30) ; Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe (October 6 – November 4) ; Ysetan Museum, Tokyo (November 9 – 27)
Maillol, Morioka Daiichi Gallery, Morioka (October 1st – 19)
Maillol au Palais des rois de Majorque, Palais des Rois de Majorque, Perpignan (March 15 – May 30)
Maillol 1861-1944, Centro cultural de la Caixa de Barcelona, Barcelona (September 27 – November 15)
Maillol, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden (June 17 – September 3)
Aristide Maillol, Lithographies, gravures et sculptures, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Tokyo (June 7 – 19) ; Contemporary Sculpture Center, Osaka (July 16 – 26)
Maillol, dessins et sculptures, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Tokyo (October 18 – 30) ; Contemporary Sculpture Center, Osaka (November 5 – 20)
Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (December 19 – March 21, 1976)
Maillol, Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Hyogo-Kobe (October 10 – November 10) ; Prefectural Museum of Art, Hiroshima (November 30 – December 22) ; Ehime, Matsuyama (January 5 – 19, 1975) ; City Museum, Kitakyushu (January 25, 1975 – February 23, 1975) ; MRO Hall, Kanazawa (March 10, 1975 – April 3, 1975) ; Galerie Mitsukoshi, Tokyo (April 15 -20, 1975)
Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, Perls Gallery, New York (March 18 – April 18)
Aristide Maillol, Musée des Beaux Arts, Neuchâtel (June 4 – September 6)
Aristide Maillol, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (August 2 – September 15)
Aristide Maillol, Kunstverein, Hambourg (October 27 – January 7, 1962) ; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Ferbuary 15, 1962 – March 15, 1962) ; Kunstverein, Francfort (March 27, 1962 – May 6, 1962) ; Würtembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (May 19, 1962 – July 8, 1962) ; Haus der Kunst, Münich (July 20, 1962 – October 7, 1962) ; Museum am Ostwald, Dortmund (October 21, 1962 – November 1962)
Hommage à Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), Musée national d’art moderne, Paris (June 23 – October 2)
Aristide Maillol, Exposition-Hommage du centenaire de sa naissance. 1861-1961, Galerie Daber, Paris (April – June)
An Exhibition of Original Pieces of Sculpture by Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944, Paul Rosenberg & Co Gallery, New York (March 3 – 29) ; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphie (April 15 – May 15), Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (September 15 – October 15) ; Toledo (November 15 – December 15) ; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (January 15 – February 15, 1959) ; Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo (March 1st, 1959 – April 5, 1959) ; The Minneapolis Art Institute, Minneapolis (April 24, 1959 – May 24, 1959) ; City Art Museum of St Louis, Saint Louis (September 10 – October 10, 1959) ; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco (November 3, 1959 – December 20, 1959) ; Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles (January 17 – February 14, 1960) ; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas (1960)
Aristide Maillol, Musée Cantini, Marseille (July – August)
Maillol, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (May 14 – June 30)
Maillol, Galerie Charpentier, Paris
Maillol, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (January 30 – March 15)
Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo (April 14 – May 23) ; Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), Buchholz Gallery, New York (June 6 – 30) (reduced selection)
Maillol Dessins et Pastels, galerie Louis Carré, Paris (December 15 – 31)
Aristide Maillol, Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York (January 31 – February 24)
Aristide Maillol [Sculpture by Maillol at the Arts Club of Chicago], The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago (December 4 – 28)
Les Maîtres de l’Art Indépendant, 1895-1937, Musée du Petit-Palais, Paris (June – October)
Sculpture by Maillol, Brummer Gallery, New York (January 3 – February 28)
Aristide Maillol, Kunsthalle, Bâle (August 5 – October 1st)
Recent drawings by Maillol, Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York (October 8 – 28) ; The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago (November 15 – 25)
Ausstellung [Aristide Maillol et Lucien Maillol], Kunsthaus, Zürich (May 18 – June 16)
Maillol, galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Düsseldorf (March) ; Berlin (November 29 – January 8, 1929)
Sculpture and Drawings by Aristide Maillol, 1925-1926, The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo (November 15 – December 15) ; The Brummer Gallery, New York (January 18, 1926 – Ferbuary 13, 1926) ; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ; Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto (August 1926) ; Denver Art Museum, Denver ; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland ; Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis ; Exhibition of sculpture, drawings and lithographs by Aristide Maillol and other french artists, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester (March 13 – 27, 1927) ; Art Institute of Omaha, Omaha ; The Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester (April 1927)
Cinquante dessins de Aristide Maillol, Galerie E. Druet, Paris (January 28 – February 8)
Tentoonstellingh van eenige Beeldhouwwerken van Aristide Maillol (Maillol Drawings and Sculpture), Kunstkring, Rotterdam (April 13 – May 4)
Exposition Aristide Maillol, Galerie Vollard, Paris
Exposition organisée par P. Mañach, Galerie Berthe Weill, Paris (December 2 – 31)
Maillol – Héritage, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (April 15 – June 25)
Maillol-Rodin Face à face, Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, Perpignan (June 21 – November 3)
Aristide Maillol, Henri Frère, Joseph-Sébastien Pons : une Arcadie catalane, Musée d’art moderne, Céret (July 2 – October 30)
Rippl-Rónai-Maillol. Histoire d’une amitié, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest (December 16 – April 26, 2015)
International Exhibition of Modern Art (Armory Show), The Armory of the Sixty-ninth Regiment, New York (February 17 – March 15) ; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (March 24 – April 16) ; The Copley Hall, Boston (April 28 – May 19)
Aristide Maillol was one of the most famous sculptors of his day. His work, based on ample forms developed from the female nude but simplified to the extreme of a pure outline, is silent and represents a true artistic revolution that would lead to the emergence of abstraction. Maillol’s artistic creation represents a turning point between the 19th and 20th century and influenced a significant number of artists including Henry Moore, Arp or Laurens but also found echoes in the work of Picasso, Brancusi and Matisse. Maillol’s work was praised by many great writers such as Octave Mirbeau and André Gide as well as stimulating publications by eminent art critics including Waldemar George and John Rewald.
Maillol began his career with painting and became interested very early on in decorative arts such as ceramics and tapestry. But it was only at the age of forty that he decided to devote himself to sculpture. Born in the Pyrénées-Orientales in 1861, Maillol remained loyal to his Mediterranean origins all his life.
After his studies in Perpignan, he moved to Paris in 1882. His first years there were difficult. He discovered the tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn at the museum of Cluny in Paris and decided to open his own weaving workshop in Banuyls. His paintings were initially greatly influenced by his contemporaries including Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. In Paris, he joined the Nabis group where he rubbed shoulders with Bonnard, Vuillard and Maurice Denis. His meeting with Gauguin in 1892 was decisive.
The year 1900 marked a turning point in Maillol’s work. During this year, he invented a genuine repertoire of shapes, anticipating his works to come. His first wooden sculptures as well as his models made of raw earth or clay, such as Venus or the Baigneuses Debout, Accroupies, se Coiffant evoked ancient Greek sculptures. The perfection of Leda’s forms impressed Rodin as well as Mirbeau who acquired it in 1902 from a highly successful exhibition at the Vollard gallery.
When Maillol exhibited the plaster of the Mediterranée at the Salon d’Automne of 1905, with the Fauve painters, the show was a triumph. The monumental sculpture represents a seated woman, absorbed in her own thoughts, whose elbow resting on her knee and head supported by her hand form a geometric composition. André Gide described the sculpture saying: “she is beautiful, she does not mean anything, it is a silent work”. This medidative figure, where no individual expression detracts from the overall vision, is a major work, whose smooth architectural structure is symbolic of Maillol’s research.
After the death in 1917 of Rodin, whose sculptural style was always said to be the opposite of Maillol’s, Maillol became the greatest living French sculptor. In the 1930s Maillol represented the renewal of sculpture and produced the Monument à Debussy, with its exquisite soft curves. In 1934, while looking for new forms of inspiration, Maillol met Dina Vierny. This young girl incarnated his ideal in sculpture and became his main model for ten years. She became his muse, his interlocutor and his collaborator. It was she who inspired his late monumental sculptures such as La Montagne, in 1937, that completed a cycle previously started at the beginning of the century, or L’Air, in 1938, a memorial to the Aéropostale aviators, as well as La Rivière, representing a female body tilted backwards who struggles to resist the flowing water that is dragging her relentlessly away and whose face reveals some form of fear. La Rivière was the first sculpture ever representing a person lying on her back, in an unstable equilibrium. This position can be perceived as an allegory of the troubled times that were to come in the Second World War during which Maillol went back to Banyuls-sur-Mer.
After being given two retrospectives in New York and in Basel in 1933, Maillol won international recognition during the universal exhibition of 1937 in Paris where several rooms were dedicated to his work. Maillol began working on Harmonie, his final sculpture, in 1940. With this unfinished sculpture, Maillol reached the pinnacle of his career. The female silhouette, slightly lopsided, reminds us of medieval sculpture and symbolises a synthesis of all his formal research. But contrary to his previous works, it is also a portrait.
Maillol died in 1944 following a car accident, close to his home town, leaving behind him a considerable body of work that we can admire in Paris, in the provinces and abroad. In the Tuileries garden, eighteen sculptures, offered in 1964 by Dina Vierny under the auspices of André Malraux, are exhibited. In 1995, Dina Vierny created a museum in Paris dedicated to his work, the Maillol museum, inaugurated in 1995 by François Mitterand.
By using a synthetic vision, based on the arrangement of masses that marked a radical break from the descriptive art of the 19th century, Maillol paved the way for abstract sculpture, as Cezanne did for painting. From the outset Maillol attempted to capture immobility in sculpture and achieved perfection in the proportions of his statues whether small or monumental. The eternal beauty of Maillol’s work, in the tradition of Jean Goujon or Edmé Bouchardon, reminds us of the figures around the pools, fountains and gardens of Versailles, and establishes Maillol as one of the greatest French artists.
Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). La quête de l’harmonie, musée d’Orsay, Paris (April 11 – August 21) ; Kunsthaus, Zurich (October 7 – January 22, 2023), La piscine – Musée d’art et d’industrie André Diligent, Roubaix (February 18, 2023 – May 21, 2023)
Maillol. La Forme libre, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (January 25 – March)
Maillol dessins, Musée Maillol, Banyuls-sur-Mer (June 24 – October 30)
Maillol et la Grèce, musée Marès, Barcelone (April 27 – January 31, 2016)
Maillol, de la ligne au volume, musée Toulouse Lautrec, Albi (April 6 – July 6, 2014)
Maillol, Kunsthal, Rotterdam (September 15 – February 10, 2013)
Maillol, Fundació Caixa Catalunya – La Pedrera, Barcelona (October 19 – January 31, 2010)
Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944, Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, Apolda (September 3 -November 20) ; Städtische Galerie in der Reithalle Paderborn-Schloss Neuhaus, Paderborn (Decemeber 3 – March 5, 2006)
Maillol and America, Marlborough Gallery, New York (October 27 – November 27)
Aristide Maillol en Madrid, Marlborough Gallery, Madrid (February 6 – March 8)
Aristide Maillol, IVAM, Valence (February 5 – March 19)
Maillol peintre, Fondation Dina Vierny – Musée Maillol, Paris (June 6 – October 29)
Maillol and Dina, Marlborough Fine Art, London (May 3 – June 22)
Aristide Maillol , Palais des Congrès, Perpignan (June 10 – September 10)
Aristide Maillol, Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung (January 14 – May 19)
Aristide Maillol, Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin (January 14 – May 5) ; musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (May 15 – September 22) ; Gerhard Marks-Haus, Bremen (October 6 – January 13, 1997) ; Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim (January 25, 1997 – March 31, 1997)
Maillol. Esculturas, Pinacothèque, Sao Paulo (October 21 – November 30) ; Espace Culturel, Banque SAFRA, Sao Paulo (December 4 – January 10,1997)
Maillol, la passion du bronze, Fondation Dina Vierny – Musée Maillol, Paris (December 13 – March 30, 1996)
Maillol, Musée de l’Annonciade, Saint-Tropez (July 9 – September 26)
Maillol, Mitsukoshi Art Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo (September 10 – October 16) ; Hakodate Art Museum, Hakodaté (October 29 – December 25) ; Takamatsu Municipal Museum of Fine Arts, Takamatsu (February 24, 1995 – March 26, 1995) ; Akita Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Akita (April 9, 1995 – May 21, 1995) ; Chiba Museum of Art, Chiba (May 27, 1995 – July 2, 1995) ; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima (July 22, 1995 – September 10, 1995) ; Himeji Municipal Museum of Art, Himeji (September 16, 1995 – October 15, 1995)
El Escultor Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, Museo Nacional de San Carlos, Mexico (October 13 – January 15, 1995)
Maillol, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris
Aristide Maillol, Departmental Museum of Fine Arts, Yamanashi (April 7 – May 6) ; Hiroshima Museum of Fine Arts, Hiroshima (May 12 – June 17) ; Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Kumamoto (June 23 – July 29) ; Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Kanazawa (August 4 – 27) ; Ehime Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Matsuyama (September 8 – 30) ; Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe (October 6 – November 4) ; Ysetan Museum, Tokyo (November 9 – 27)
Maillol, Morioka Daiichi Gallery, Morioka (October 1st – 19)
Maillol au Palais des rois de Majorque, Palais des Rois de Majorque, Perpignan (March 15 – May 30)
Maillol 1861-1944, Centro cultural de la Caixa de Barcelona, Barcelona (September 27 – November 15)
Maillol, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden (June 17 – September 3)
Aristide Maillol, Lithographies, gravures et sculptures, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Tokyo (June 7 – 19) ; Contemporary Sculpture Center, Osaka (July 16 – 26)
Maillol, dessins et sculptures, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Tokyo (October 18 – 30) ; Contemporary Sculpture Center, Osaka (November 5 – 20)
Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (December 19 – March 21, 1976)
Maillol, Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Hyogo-Kobe (October 10 – November 10) ; Prefectural Museum of Art, Hiroshima (November 30 – December 22) ; Ehime, Matsuyama (January 5 – 19, 1975) ; City Museum, Kitakyushu (January 25, 1975 – February 23, 1975) ; MRO Hall, Kanazawa (March 10, 1975 – April 3, 1975) ; Galerie Mitsukoshi, Tokyo (April 15 -20, 1975)
Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, Perls Gallery, New York (March 18 – April 18)
Aristide Maillol, Musée des Beaux Arts, Neuchâtel (June 4 – September 6)
Aristide Maillol, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (August 2 – September 15)
Aristide Maillol, Kunstverein, Hambourg (October 27 – January 7, 1962) ; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Ferbuary 15, 1962 – March 15, 1962) ; Kunstverein, Francfort (March 27, 1962 – May 6, 1962) ; Würtembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (May 19, 1962 – July 8, 1962) ; Haus der Kunst, Münich (July 20, 1962 – October 7, 1962) ; Museum am Ostwald, Dortmund (October 21, 1962 – November 1962)
Hommage à Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), Musée national d’art moderne, Paris (June 23 – October 2)
Aristide Maillol, Exposition-Hommage du centenaire de sa naissance. 1861-1961, Galerie Daber, Paris (April – June)
An Exhibition of Original Pieces of Sculpture by Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944, Paul Rosenberg & Co Gallery, New York (March 3 – 29) ; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphie (April 15 – May 15), Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (September 15 – October 15) ; Toledo (November 15 – December 15) ; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (January 15 – February 15, 1959) ; Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo (March 1st, 1959 – April 5, 1959) ; The Minneapolis Art Institute, Minneapolis (April 24, 1959 – May 24, 1959) ; City Art Museum of St Louis, Saint Louis (September 10 – October 10, 1959) ; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco (November 3, 1959 – December 20, 1959) ; Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles (January 17 – February 14, 1960) ; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas (1960)
Aristide Maillol, Musée Cantini, Marseille (July – August)
Maillol, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (May 14 – June 30)
Maillol, Galerie Charpentier, Paris
Maillol, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (January 30 – March 15)
Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo (April 14 – May 23) ; Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), Buchholz Gallery, New York (June 6 – 30) (reduced selection)
Maillol Dessins et Pastels, galerie Louis Carré, Paris (December 15 – 31)
Aristide Maillol, Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York (January 31 – February 24)
Aristide Maillol [Sculpture by Maillol at the Arts Club of Chicago], The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago (December 4 – 28)
Les Maîtres de l’Art Indépendant, 1895-1937, Musée du Petit-Palais, Paris (June – October)
Sculpture by Maillol, Brummer Gallery, New York (January 3 – February 28)
Aristide Maillol, Kunsthalle, Bâle (August 5 – October 1st)
Recent drawings by Maillol, Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York (October 8 – 28) ; The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago (November 15 – 25)
Ausstellung [Aristide Maillol et Lucien Maillol], Kunsthaus, Zürich (May 18 – June 16)
Maillol, galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Düsseldorf (March) ; Berlin (November 29 – January 8, 1929)
Sculpture and Drawings by Aristide Maillol, 1925-1926, The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo (November 15 – December 15) ; The Brummer Gallery, New York (January 18, 1926 – Ferbuary 13, 1926) ; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ; Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto (August 1926) ; Denver Art Museum, Denver ; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland ; Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis ; Exhibition of sculpture, drawings and lithographs by Aristide Maillol and other french artists, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester (March 13 – 27, 1927) ; Art Institute of Omaha, Omaha ; The Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester (April 1927)
Cinquante dessins de Aristide Maillol, Galerie E. Druet, Paris (January 28 – February 8)
Tentoonstellingh van eenige Beeldhouwwerken van Aristide Maillol (Maillol Drawings and Sculpture), Kunstkring, Rotterdam (April 13 – May 4)
Exposition Aristide Maillol, Galerie Vollard, Paris
Exposition organisée par P. Mañach, Galerie Berthe Weill, Paris (December 2 – 31)
Maillol – Héritage, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (April 15 – June 25)
Maillol-Rodin Face à face, Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, Perpignan (June 21 – November 3)
Aristide Maillol, Henri Frère, Joseph-Sébastien Pons : une Arcadie catalane, Musée d’art moderne, Céret (July 2 – October 30)
Rippl-Rónai-Maillol. Histoire d’une amitié, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest (December 16 – April 26, 2015)
International Exhibition of Modern Art (Armory Show), The Armory of the Sixty-ninth Regiment, New York (February 17 – March 15) ; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (March 24 – April 16) ; The Copley Hall, Boston (April 28 – May 19)
23.5 x 30.5 cm
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Aristide Maillol was one of the most famous sculptors of his day. His work, based on ample forms developed from the female nude but simplified to the extreme of a pure outline, is silent and represents a true artistic revolution that would lead to the emergence of abstraction. Maillol’s artistic creation represents a turning point between the 19th and 20th century and influenced a significant number of artists including Henry Moore, Arp or Laurens but also found echoes in the work of Picasso, Brancusi and Matisse. Maillol’s work was praised…
Aristide Maillol was one of the most famous sculptors of his day. His work, based on ample forms developed from the female nude but simplified to the extreme of a pure outline, is silent and represents a true artistic revolution that would lead to the emergence of abstraction. Maillol’s artistic creation represents a turning point between the 19th and 20th century and influenced a significant number of artists including Henry Moore, Arp or Laurens but also found echoes in the work of Picasso, Brancusi and Matisse. Maillol’s work was praised by many great writers such as Octave Mirbeau and André Gide as well as stimulating publications by eminent art critics including Waldemar George and John Rewald.
Maillol began his career with painting and became interested very early on in decorative arts such as ceramics and tapestry. But it was only at the age of forty that he decided to devote himself to sculpture. Born in the Pyrénées-Orientales in 1861, Maillol remained loyal to his Mediterranean origins all his life.
After his studies in Perpignan, he moved to Paris in 1882. His first years there were difficult. He discovered the tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn at the museum of Cluny in Paris and decided to open his own weaving workshop in Banuyls. His paintings were initially greatly influenced by his contemporaries including Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. In Paris, he joined the Nabis group where he rubbed shoulders with Bonnard, Vuillard and Maurice Denis. His meeting with Gauguin in 1892 was decisive.
The year 1900 marked a turning point in Maillol’s work. During this year, he invented a genuine repertoire of shapes, anticipating his works to come. His first wooden sculptures as well as his models made of raw earth or clay, such as Venus or the Baigneuses Debout, Accroupies, se Coiffant evoked ancient Greek sculptures. The perfection of Leda’s forms impressed Rodin as well as Mirbeau who acquired it in 1902 from a highly successful exhibition at the Vollard gallery.
When Maillol exhibited the plaster of the Mediterranée at the Salon d’Automne of 1905, with the Fauve painters, the show was a triumph. The monumental sculpture represents a seated woman, absorbed in her own thoughts, whose elbow resting on her knee and head supported by her hand form a geometric composition. André Gide described the sculpture saying: “she is beautiful, she does not mean anything, it is a silent work”. This medidative figure, where no individual expression detracts from the overall vision, is a major work, whose smooth architectural structure is symbolic of Maillol’s research.
After the death in 1917 of Rodin, whose sculptural style was always said to be the opposite of Maillol’s, Maillol became the greatest living French sculptor. In the 1930s Maillol represented the renewal of sculpture and produced the Monument à Debussy, with its exquisite soft curves. In 1934, while looking for new forms of inspiration, Maillol met Dina Vierny. This young girl incarnated his ideal in sculpture and became his main model for ten years. She became his muse, his interlocutor and his collaborator. It was she who inspired his late monumental sculptures such as La Montagne, in 1937, that completed a cycle previously started at the beginning of the century, or L’Air, in 1938, a memorial to the Aéropostale aviators, as well as La Rivière, representing a female body tilted backwards who struggles to resist the flowing water that is dragging her relentlessly away and whose face reveals some form of fear. La Rivière was the first sculpture ever representing a person lying on her back, in an unstable equilibrium. This position can be perceived as an allegory of the troubled times that were to come in the Second World War during which Maillol went back to Banyuls-sur-Mer.
After being given two retrospectives in New York and in Basel in 1933, Maillol won international recognition during the universal exhibition of 1937 in Paris where several rooms were dedicated to his work. Maillol began working on Harmonie, his final sculpture, in 1940. With this unfinished sculpture, Maillol reached the pinnacle of his career. The female silhouette, slightly lopsided, reminds us of medieval sculpture and symbolises a synthesis of all his formal research. But contrary to his previous works, it is also a portrait.
Maillol died in 1944 following a car accident, close to his home town, leaving behind him a considerable body of work that we can admire in Paris, in the provinces and abroad. In the Tuileries garden, eighteen sculptures, offered in 1964 by Dina Vierny under the auspices of André Malraux, are exhibited. In 1995, Dina Vierny created a museum in Paris dedicated to his work, the Maillol museum, inaugurated in 1995 by François Mitterand.
By using a synthetic vision, based on the arrangement of masses that marked a radical break from the descriptive art of the 19th century, Maillol paved the way for abstract sculpture, as Cezanne did for painting. From the outset Maillol attempted to capture immobility in sculpture and achieved perfection in the proportions of his statues whether small or monumental. The eternal beauty of Maillol’s work, in the tradition of Jean Goujon or Edmé Bouchardon, reminds us of the figures around the pools, fountains and gardens of Versailles, and establishes Maillol as one of the greatest French artists.
Aristide Maillol (1861-1944). La quête de l’harmonie, musée d’Orsay, Paris (April 11 – August 21) ; Kunsthaus, Zurich (October 7 – January 22, 2023), La piscine – Musée d’art et d’industrie André Diligent, Roubaix (February 18, 2023 – May 21, 2023)
Maillol. La Forme libre, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (January 25 – March)
Maillol dessins, Musée Maillol, Banyuls-sur-Mer (June 24 – October 30)
Maillol et la Grèce, musée Marès, Barcelone (April 27 – January 31, 2016)
Maillol, de la ligne au volume, musée Toulouse Lautrec, Albi (April 6 – July 6, 2014)
Maillol, Kunsthal, Rotterdam (September 15 – February 10, 2013)
Maillol, Fundació Caixa Catalunya – La Pedrera, Barcelona (October 19 – January 31, 2010)
Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944, Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, Apolda (September 3 -November 20) ; Städtische Galerie in der Reithalle Paderborn-Schloss Neuhaus, Paderborn (Decemeber 3 – March 5, 2006)
Maillol and America, Marlborough Gallery, New York (October 27 – November 27)
Aristide Maillol en Madrid, Marlborough Gallery, Madrid (February 6 – March 8)
Aristide Maillol, IVAM, Valence (February 5 – March 19)
Maillol peintre, Fondation Dina Vierny – Musée Maillol, Paris (June 6 – October 29)
Maillol and Dina, Marlborough Fine Art, London (May 3 – June 22)
Aristide Maillol , Palais des Congrès, Perpignan (June 10 – September 10)
Aristide Maillol, Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung (January 14 – May 19)
Aristide Maillol, Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin (January 14 – May 5) ; musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (May 15 – September 22) ; Gerhard Marks-Haus, Bremen (October 6 – January 13, 1997) ; Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim (January 25, 1997 – March 31, 1997)
Maillol. Esculturas, Pinacothèque, Sao Paulo (October 21 – November 30) ; Espace Culturel, Banque SAFRA, Sao Paulo (December 4 – January 10,1997)
Maillol, la passion du bronze, Fondation Dina Vierny – Musée Maillol, Paris (December 13 – March 30, 1996)
Maillol, Musée de l’Annonciade, Saint-Tropez (July 9 – September 26)
Maillol, Mitsukoshi Art Museum, Shinjuku, Tokyo (September 10 – October 16) ; Hakodate Art Museum, Hakodaté (October 29 – December 25) ; Takamatsu Municipal Museum of Fine Arts, Takamatsu (February 24, 1995 – March 26, 1995) ; Akita Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Akita (April 9, 1995 – May 21, 1995) ; Chiba Museum of Art, Chiba (May 27, 1995 – July 2, 1995) ; Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukushima (July 22, 1995 – September 10, 1995) ; Himeji Municipal Museum of Art, Himeji (September 16, 1995 – October 15, 1995)
El Escultor Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, Museo Nacional de San Carlos, Mexico (October 13 – January 15, 1995)
Maillol, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris
Aristide Maillol, Departmental Museum of Fine Arts, Yamanashi (April 7 – May 6) ; Hiroshima Museum of Fine Arts, Hiroshima (May 12 – June 17) ; Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Kumamoto (June 23 – July 29) ; Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Kanazawa (August 4 – 27) ; Ehime Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Matsuyama (September 8 – 30) ; Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kobe (October 6 – November 4) ; Ysetan Museum, Tokyo (November 9 – 27)
Maillol, Morioka Daiichi Gallery, Morioka (October 1st – 19)
Maillol au Palais des rois de Majorque, Palais des Rois de Majorque, Perpignan (March 15 – May 30)
Maillol 1861-1944, Centro cultural de la Caixa de Barcelona, Barcelona (September 27 – November 15)
Maillol, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden (June 17 – September 3)
Aristide Maillol, Lithographies, gravures et sculptures, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Tokyo (June 7 – 19) ; Contemporary Sculpture Center, Osaka (July 16 – 26)
Maillol, dessins et sculptures, Contemporary Sculpture Center, Tokyo (October 18 – 30) ; Contemporary Sculpture Center, Osaka (November 5 – 20)
Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (December 19 – March 21, 1976)
Maillol, Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Hyogo-Kobe (October 10 – November 10) ; Prefectural Museum of Art, Hiroshima (November 30 – December 22) ; Ehime, Matsuyama (January 5 – 19, 1975) ; City Museum, Kitakyushu (January 25, 1975 – February 23, 1975) ; MRO Hall, Kanazawa (March 10, 1975 – April 3, 1975) ; Galerie Mitsukoshi, Tokyo (April 15 -20, 1975)
Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, Perls Gallery, New York (March 18 – April 18)
Aristide Maillol, Musée des Beaux Arts, Neuchâtel (June 4 – September 6)
Aristide Maillol, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (August 2 – September 15)
Aristide Maillol, Kunstverein, Hambourg (October 27 – January 7, 1962) ; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Ferbuary 15, 1962 – March 15, 1962) ; Kunstverein, Francfort (March 27, 1962 – May 6, 1962) ; Würtembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (May 19, 1962 – July 8, 1962) ; Haus der Kunst, Münich (July 20, 1962 – October 7, 1962) ; Museum am Ostwald, Dortmund (October 21, 1962 – November 1962)
Hommage à Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), Musée national d’art moderne, Paris (June 23 – October 2)
Aristide Maillol, Exposition-Hommage du centenaire de sa naissance. 1861-1961, Galerie Daber, Paris (April – June)
An Exhibition of Original Pieces of Sculpture by Aristide Maillol, 1861-1944, Paul Rosenberg & Co Gallery, New York (March 3 – 29) ; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphie (April 15 – May 15), Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (September 15 – October 15) ; Toledo (November 15 – December 15) ; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (January 15 – February 15, 1959) ; Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo (March 1st, 1959 – April 5, 1959) ; The Minneapolis Art Institute, Minneapolis (April 24, 1959 – May 24, 1959) ; City Art Museum of St Louis, Saint Louis (September 10 – October 10, 1959) ; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco (November 3, 1959 – December 20, 1959) ; Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles (January 17 – February 14, 1960) ; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas (1960)
Aristide Maillol, Musée Cantini, Marseille (July – August)
Maillol, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (May 14 – June 30)
Maillol, Galerie Charpentier, Paris
Maillol, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (January 30 – March 15)
Aristide Maillol 1861-1944, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo (April 14 – May 23) ; Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), Buchholz Gallery, New York (June 6 – 30) (reduced selection)
Maillol Dessins et Pastels, galerie Louis Carré, Paris (December 15 – 31)
Aristide Maillol, Buchholz Gallery (Curt Valentin), New York (January 31 – February 24)
Aristide Maillol [Sculpture by Maillol at the Arts Club of Chicago], The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago (December 4 – 28)
Les Maîtres de l’Art Indépendant, 1895-1937, Musée du Petit-Palais, Paris (June – October)
Sculpture by Maillol, Brummer Gallery, New York (January 3 – February 28)
Aristide Maillol, Kunsthalle, Bâle (August 5 – October 1st)
Recent drawings by Maillol, Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York (October 8 – 28) ; The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago (November 15 – 25)
Ausstellung [Aristide Maillol et Lucien Maillol], Kunsthaus, Zürich (May 18 – June 16)
Maillol, galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Düsseldorf (March) ; Berlin (November 29 – January 8, 1929)
Sculpture and Drawings by Aristide Maillol, 1925-1926, The Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo (November 15 – December 15) ; The Brummer Gallery, New York (January 18, 1926 – Ferbuary 13, 1926) ; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ; Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto (August 1926) ; Denver Art Museum, Denver ; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland ; Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis ; Exhibition of sculpture, drawings and lithographs by Aristide Maillol and other french artists, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester (March 13 – 27, 1927) ; Art Institute of Omaha, Omaha ; The Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester (April 1927)
Cinquante dessins de Aristide Maillol, Galerie E. Druet, Paris (January 28 – February 8)
Tentoonstellingh van eenige Beeldhouwwerken van Aristide Maillol (Maillol Drawings and Sculpture), Kunstkring, Rotterdam (April 13 – May 4)
Exposition Aristide Maillol, Galerie Vollard, Paris
Exposition organisée par P. Mañach, Galerie Berthe Weill, Paris (December 2 – 31)
Maillol – Héritage, Galerie Dina Vierny, Paris (April 15 – June 25)
Maillol-Rodin Face à face, Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, Perpignan (June 21 – November 3)
Aristide Maillol, Henri Frère, Joseph-Sébastien Pons : une Arcadie catalane, Musée d’art moderne, Céret (July 2 – October 30)
Rippl-Rónai-Maillol. Histoire d’une amitié, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest (December 16 – April 26, 2015)
International Exhibition of Modern Art (Armory Show), The Armory of the Sixty-ninth Regiment, New York (February 17 – March 15) ; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (March 24 – April 16) ; The Copley Hall, Boston (April 28 – May 19)
Galerie Dina Vierny
36 rue Jacob 75006 Paris
Open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Galerie Dina Vierny
36 rue Jacob 75006 Paris
Open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.