The Three Nymphs

1933

Retrospectives in New York and Basel

In 1933 two retrospective exhibitions of Maillol's work were held, in New York and in Basel.

1934

Meets Dina Vierny

In 1934 the architect Jean-Claude Dondel introduced the 73-year-old Maillol to Dina Vierny, a fifteen-year-old émigrée from Bessarabia. For ten years she was his principal model and muse — The Mountain, The River, The Air, Harmony — and through their collaboration Maillol returned to drawing from life.

1937

Recognition at the 1937 World's Fair

In 1937 Maillol's work won recognition at the World's Fair and in the new National Museum of Modern Art at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris; that same year he was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour.

1939

Withdraws to Banyuls as war breaks out

At the outbreak of the Second World War Maillol withdrew to his native Banyuls-sur-Mer.

27 September 1944

The circumstances of his death

By some accounts, the 82-year-old Maillol died in a car accident: on the way home in a thunderstorm, the car in which he was a passenger skidded off the road and rolled over. Others call the accident the official version and say that the sculptor, having had no news of Dina Vierny, whom he believed arrested (she was Jewish), took his own life.

27 September 1944

Died