"She is beautiful, she means nothing; it is a silent work. I believe one must go far back in time to find such complete neglect of any preoccupation beyond the simple manifestation of beauty.", André Gide, on Maillol's La Méditerranée, Salon d'Automne, 1905
Aristide Maillol (December 8, 1861 – September 27, 1944) was a French sculptor, painter, and printmaker whose return to a serene, classically grounded conception of the human figure helped redirect the course of modern European sculpture. Born in the Catalan fishing town of Banyuls-sur-Mer, he moved to Paris in 1881 to study painting and was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1885, where he studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Alexandre Cabanel. His early career unfolded as a painter and tapestry designer in close association with the Nabis, Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, and Maurice Denis, and under the strong influence of Paul Gauguin. He turned decisively to sculpture in the mid-1890s, and by his mid-forties had emerged as one of the most consequential sculptors of his generation.
His work is held in the collections of the Musée d'Orsay, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Tate, and the Tuileries Garden in Paris, among many others, and the Musée Maillol in Paris and the museum at his property in Banyuls-sur-Mer are dedicated to his work.