Biography

A few days before war breaks out, Kessler sends a telegraph from Germany: "Maillol, bury the statues, war is coming!" This telegram causes Maillol a lot of headaches, who has to prove that he is not a spy to the authorities.

1918-1929
Maillol starts his large statue Venus with a Necklace.
The towns of Céret, Port-Vendres and Elne commission commemorative stone monuments from him.
He exhibits Draped Bather in the Salon d'Automne in 1921. He exhibits Bust of a Girl (stone) and Pomona (bronze) in the Salon d'Automne in 1922. He receives a state commission for a copy of Mediterranean in marble in 1923. Maillol takes part in the tribute to Esteve Terrús in 1922 who has recently passed away, organised by the Colla del Rosselló and Perpignan. He donates the bust he made of the painter years before. In 1925 Maillol's friends form a subscription committee to erect Monument to Cézanne that was rejected by Aix-en-Provence. Paris buys the monument in the end, but it is not erected.
Maillol finishes ÎIe de France.

In 1925 Maillol's friends form a subscription committee to erect Monument to Cézanne that was rejected by Aix-en-Provence. Paris buys the monument in the end, but it is not erected. Maillol finishes ÎIe de France.
The first written works on the artist start to appear: by Maurice Denis (Paris: Crès); by Alfred Kuhn (Leipzig: Seemann); Aristide Maillol, sculpteur et litographe, by Marc Lafargue (Paris: Frapier), and "Aristide Maillol" by Christian Zervos (L’Art d’Aujourd’hui [Paris], No 7). His friend the poet Pere Camo from northern Catalonia publishes a monographic study on his work in 1926 (Paris: Gallimard) and Feliu Elias dedicates a whole chapter to him in L’Escultura catalana moderna (Barcelona: Editorial Barcino, Col·lecció Enciclopèdia Catalunya). He has his first solo exhibition in the US, in the Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo. Maillol exhibits Torso in the Salon d’Automne in 1926 and the finished plaster cast of Venus with a Necklace in the one held in 1928, the year he also exhibits in the Goupil Gallery (London) and the Flechteim gallery (Berlin). He goes to Germany and meets Albert Einstein.
After a press campaign, Monument to Cézanne is finally erected in the Tuileries Garden in 1929, not that far from the marble version of Mediterranean acquired by the French government in 1923.

Île-de-France 1925,
Bronze, 84 x 22,5 x 28,5 cm
Claude Valsuani, artist proof
Dina Vierny Collection, Paris