Many's the time that I have had inexplicable yearnings to caress the female figures of Aristide Maillol. And a few years later I finally came out. This week I read of the death of Dina Vierny, and discovered that she was a model for Maillol. The Times says:"Dina Vierny was born in the Moldovan capital Chisinau in 1919, and she fled Stalin’s Soviet Union for Paris with her Jewish family in 1925. She was 15 when, as the story goes, she was spotted by a family friend at a party. “I have met a girl who is a living Maillol.” he reported to the sculptor. “You must meet her.”
So began a ten-year collaboration between the schoolgirl and the artist, who was then 73; it ended with Maillol’s death in a car crash in 1944. Vierny’s presence, energy and enthusiasm helped to revive Maillol’s career, which at the time was on hold, and even inspired him to go back to painting, an activity that he had long since abandoned."
How soon can we return to a time when the zaftig woman is considered a beauty? The rest of Dina's story is here.
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