Maillol, Aristide (Joseph Bonaventure) (1861–1944)

French sculptor and graphic artist. Reacting against the emotional intensity of Auguste Rodin, he created female nudes whose classical simplicity of form, derived in part from ancient Greek and Roman works, was strongly to influence 20th-century French monumental sculpture. The Mediterranean (1905; Museum of Modern Art, New York) is typical. Among his graphic works are illustrations to Virgil's Eclogues.

Maillol was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer in Roussillon, and educated at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He began as a painter and then took up tapestry, and around 1900, his eyesight failing, he began to teach himself to sculpt. His closest links with contemporary art were with les Nabis. Other works include Monument to Cézanne 1916 in Aix-en-Provence, Venus with Necklace 1928 (Tate Gallery, London), and his early Portrait of Renoir 1907 (Museum of Modern Art, New York).