Moldovian-born model DINA VIERNY has died, aged 89.
Vierny, who served as the muse of French Catalan sculptor Aristide Maillol for over a decade, died on 20 January (09); no cause of death was given.
The pair, who were introduced by a friend of her father’s, met when a 15-year-old Vierny was a student in Paris in the mid-1930s, and began to model for Maillol, then 73.
Her figure was immortalised by Maillol in portraits including Dina With a Scarf and scultptures including The Seated Bather, The Mountain, Air, The River and Harmony - his last and unfinished piece. She is often credited with helping him to revive his flailing career.
In 1939 the favour was returned when Maillol helped send her to Nice where she posed for Matisse, after being acquitted in connection to smuggling refugees from occupied France into Spain during World War II.
She also posed for French artists Raoul Dufy and Pierre Bonnard, and sculptor Arno Breker, best-known for his works in Nazi Germany.
After the war and Maillol’s death, Vierny became an avid collector; in 1995 she opened the Fondation Dina Vierny-Musee Maillol, including work by Degas, Kandinsky, Picasso and Duchamp, among others.
She is survived by her two sons, Olivier Lorquin, the director of the Maillol Museum, and the art historian Bertrand Lorquin, its curator.
Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com)
