Maillol was born in 1861 in the southern French fishing village of Banyuls-sur-Mer, at the foot of the Pyrenees. His father was a winegrower and his mother worked as a textile saleswoman. When he was 21 he left for Paris where he started his training as a painter at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts as the apprentice of the successful painter Alexandre Cabanel. Maillol, however, did not agree with the classical academic style of Cabanel and the Paris Salon.

In 1889, at the invitation of his friend and colleague Daniel de Montfreid, he visited the controversial exhibition of the Impressioniste et Synthétiste group in the Café des Arts in Paris. He was surprised to find that his own work fits almost seamlessly with the painterly views of the members of the Les Nabis group (The Prophets). This group followed Gauguin's 'crédo Breton' during this time: the realization of universal ideas in a way as he had seen them in the primitive work of the early Khmer culture of Cambodia, and the art of ancient Egypt. Maillol's images were, according to himself, influenced not so much by Gauguin's style as by his ideas and theories to arrive at an ‘idea form’. Inspired by the colorful, stylized compositions of Gauguin and the group of painters around him, Maillol begins to design carpets. He worked mainly in his hometown, Banyuls-sur-Mer, and it took until 1895 before he was included in the close-knit circle of Les Nabis.

Just like Les Nabis group, Maillol had a great admiration for the Arts and Crafts movement. In addition to tapestries, he made ceramic and wooden objects, earthenware washbasins, and wood carvings for furniture. This laid the groundwork for his turn to sculpture. At the age of 40, his sight had degraded to such a degree that he had to give up refined design. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Maillol created his first wooden, ceramic, and bronze statuettes detached from their decorative functionality.

It is the artist Edouard Vuillard who first appreciated Maillol's sculpture. In 1902, he drew the attention of the internationally renowned art dealer Ambroise Vollard to the work of Maillol. The latter immediately recognizes Maillol's talent and pays for a ceramic kiln for him as well as 33 statues to have cast in bronze. Vollard also organized a solo exhibition that aroused interest in Parisian art circles. Three years later in 1905, the first plaster version of La Méditerranée was exhibited at the prestigious Salon d'Automne, officially marking Maillol’s breakthrough as a sculptor.

The main subject of Maillol's sculptural oeuvre is women, which he called Nabi nu and Nabi vêtue. These monumental female nudes have solid bodies, where the feminine form is reduced to voluminous geometric round shapes. The work is characterized by serenity, stillness, and an abstract representation of the face in which personal characteristics are missing: his images do not represent the individual but an ideal of beauty. Anatomical correctness is of secondary importance. With his choice of form and geometry instead of fidelity, Maillol paves the way for the later, abstract sculpture by artists such as Constantin Brâncusi, Jean (Hans) Arp, and even Henry Moore.

Maillol died in 1944 as the result of a car accident. A large part of the collection of Maillol’s work is held at the Musée Maillol in Paris as well as the Musée Maillol Bayuls-sur-Mer in the house where Maillol lived. Three of his bronze statues grace the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York: Summer (1910-11), Venus Without Arms (1920), and Kneeling Woman: Monument to Debussey (1950-55). His sculptures can be found in locations across the world.

Close