Dina Vierny: The Extraordinary Life of Maillol's Muse and Museum Founder

A posthumous memoir, 'Histoire de ma vie racontée à Alain Jaubert' (Gallimard, Témoins de l'art), recounts the remarkable life of Dina Vierny (1919–2009), the Russian-born model, resistance fighter, gallery owner, and founder of the Musée Maillol in Paris. The book, based on interviews conducted from 1999–2000 and 2006–2008, reveals Vierny's youth as the preferred model for sculptor Aristide Maillol, her escape from Stalinist Russia, her involvement with Trotskyist movements in France, and her daring wartime work smuggling Jews and anti-Nazi Germans across the Pyrenees from Banyuls to Spain. Arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned, her father died at Auschwitz. After the war, she opened Galerie 36, rue Jacob, exhibiting artists like Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, and Poliakoff. Inheriting Maillol's estate, she campaigned for decades to create the Musée Maillol, which opened thanks to support from André Malraux, Jean Cassou, Bernard Anthonioz, and Gaston Defferre. The museum now houses major works by Maillol and hosts exhibitions of international artists. Vierny's story is illustrated with photographs by Pierre Jamet and others, capturing her striking beauty. She is remembered for her sharp intelligence, unwavering anti-communism, and her own self-description as 'a normal woman' who loved and was loved.