Private collection, London

2023: RODIN DALOU, Eros Gallery, 1-22 December

Aimé-Jules Dalou (1838-1902) was one of only a handful of leading late-nineteenth century French Sculptors, whose reputation was perhaps second only to his contemporaries, Henri Chapu (1833-1891) and Marius Jean Antonin Mercié (1845-1916). Dalou was hugely influential and was a founding member of the Société des Artistes Français and later a founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. He was officially rewarded with the highest rank of the Légion d'Honneur two years before his death, with the inauguration of the Triumph of Republic, in 1899.

He started his artistic training in 1852 at the Petite Ecole after being encouraged to do so by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, where he studied drawing and modelling. Carpeaux continued to support Dalou throughout his career and influenced his sculpture greatly. Dalou began employment in the field of decorative sculpture working for two companies in Paris, Lefèvre and Favière goldsmiths. During this time he contributed towards the architectural features of Hôtel de la Païva, the then home of the infamous French courtesan Esther Lachmann known as La Païva.

Dalou's unique approach lay in his broad range of subject, painterly and sculptural source material, though which he absorbed an impressive spectrum of inspiration. The work of an eighteenth-century sculptor, Louis-François Roubiliac, played a significant role in Dalou's artistic development, whose sculptures he studied whilst in London. Dalou's work includes friezes, maquettes, reliefs, and individual bronze figures. He is known for Baroque-inspired allegorical group compositions, as much as for his depictions of the French rural labouring classes. Dalou encouraged students of art to free themselves from the constrainsts of established traditions, with his style and teachings thought to have awakened a new generation of young British sculptors whose work was later aligned to the New Sculpture movement.

Throughout his extraordinary career, Dalou's dedication to the working classes was unwavering. The Picker is one of twenty two bronzes which make up the Monument to the Workers series. Dalou's centerpiece to this series is entitled Larger Sower on Column, and is the only figure in the series to be depicted on a column. This series was intended to be a tribute to the members of society who he considered to be the most deserving of recognition but who were ultimately the most overlooked.

Maurice Dreyfus, Dalou’s biographer explains that the celebration on 22 September 1889 to mark the unveiling of Triumph of the Republic was the catalyst for this project. Dalou was furious that the working classes were sidelined at this event in favour of the army and military dignitaries. Dreyfus states that ‘from that day on, he resolved to muster all his talent and knowledge to create a monument that would glorify the soldiers of the work of love, peace and labor, and which he dreamed would be more superb than any ever erected to the workers of the destructive work of war...No more symbols, no more allegories; men themselves, depicted as they are in reality, would be the only ornament’. He was tired of war and the celebrations of battle and wanted to turn his focus to the people he believed to be worthy of commemorating.

Although this ambitious monument was sadly never realised, Dalou worked tirelessly on it’s creation for over a decade, completing numerous sketches and maquettes. To depict the workers as authentically as he could he left Paris and ventured into the countryside, visting a fishing village near Sainte-Adresse to sketch fisherman and Toul in north-eastern France where he studied metal workers. The labourers he was most fixated on however were farmers, he created countless models of men and women carrying hay bales, sowing seeds and working the land. His maquettes share commonalities such as their muscular veined arms, their plain clothes and strong, powerful stances. The hands of his figures are often enlarged symbolsing years of manual labour.