Aimé-Jules Dalou

Background

Aimé-Jules Dalou was born on December 31, 1838 in Paris, France.

Education

In 1854 he attended the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris in the François-Joseph Duret classroom. He studied with Jean Carpeaux, Francois Duret, and Abel de Pujol.

Career

Dalou was strongly influenced by Rubens. After the Commune of 1870, and until 1878, Dalou was a political exile in England, where he achieved success as a sculptor and teacher. Politically a liberal, artistically Dalou may be considered the last vigorous representative of traditional sculpture in France. His work ranges from the brilliant orchestration of forms in the Triumph of the Republic or the Silenus (Paris) to pleasant, small genre subjects such as the Woman Reading. Dalou's death left unfinished the great Monument to Labor, which would have epitomized his liberal convictions and his realist powers.

Achievements

• He was recognized as one of the most brilliant virtuosos of nineteenth-century France, admired for his perceptiveness, execution, and unpretentious realism.