Aristide Maillol

Aristide Maillol (April 8, 1861 - September 27, 1944) was a French Catalan sculptor and painter.

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Maillol was born on at Banyuls-sur-Mer, Roussillon, France near the Mediterranean Sea. He studied in Paris, under renowned teacher Antoine Bourdelle and at the ?cole des Beaux Arts.

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Aristide Maillol played an important role in the development of sculpture, from Romanticism to the modern sculptors of the twentieth-century. He is best known for his substantial, full-breasted female nudes. This tradition would be taken to extremes by Gaston Lachaise, who thereby moved sculpture closer to abstract art.

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The paintings of his contemporaries Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Paul Gauguin gave direction to his own painting and pointed out to him the need for the decorative elements to predominate in a work of art. He decided to manufacture tapestries and to that end started a small studio in his home town of Banyuls, employing village girls on the weaving and using home-made dyes.

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He died in a car accident. While driving back home during a rain shower, the car in which he was a passenger skidded off the road and overturned. Dina Vierny, Maillol's companion during the last 10 years of his life, established the Maillol Museum in Paris.

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1861: 1861 is a common year starting on Tuesday....

September 27: September 27 is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 95 days remaining....

1944: 1944 was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar)....