Arístides Maillol
Aristide Maillol
(Banyuls-sur-Mer, December 8, 1861 - Banyuls-sur-Mer, September 27, 1944) was a French painter, printmaker and sculptor, born in Banyuls-sur-Mer in the Roussillon of the Pyrenees-Orientales.
ristide Maillol was the fourth of the five children of the cloth merchant and owner of the vineyard Rapha? l Maillol and his wife Catherine Rouge. He came from a family of winegrowers, sailors, and smugglers.
His birthplace was the fishing village of Banyuls-sur-mer, located on the Mediterranean, near the Spanish border. His mother tongue was Catalan, which he spoke with a strong French accent.
From a very young age he showed great fondness for drawing; at the age of thirteen he painted his first painting. At the age of 18 he published a magazine, La Figue, of which he was the only editor, printer, illustrator and finally the only client.1
In 1882 Maillol traveled to Paris, where after several attempts, in 1885, he was admitted to the drawing and painting courses at the School of Fine Arts.
"Arístides Maillol was 78 years old when the Second World War began, the end of which he did not see. His attitude towards Pétain's collaborationist regime has been written, but Dina Vierny has explained that the sculptor agreed to hide artists fugitive from the Nazis there, that the young model helped cross the border on a path that he showed her. "12
Maillol died on September 27, 1944, in Banyuls-sur-Mer, apparently as a result of a traffic accident, which occurred ten days earlier, when he was returning from visiting the painter Raoul Dufy in Vernet-les-Bains. At the hospital, he writes his last thoughts in a notebook. Only ten people attend his burial at the local cemetery.13
In 1963 the sculptures donated by Dina Vierny to the French State were installed in the gardens of the Tuileries and in 1995 the Maillol Museum was opened in Paris, a year earlier another had been inaugurated in her hometown of Bayuls-sur- Mer.
In 2000, the great exhibition of his works was held in the Maillol space of the Palacio de Congresos in Perpignan. In 2009 an extensive exhibition of the artist was held at Casa Milà (La Pedrera), the work of Antoni Gaudí, in the city of Barcelona. Aristides maillol
