Great personalities never stop surprising us. Mrs Dina Vierny belongs to this category of outstanding people.
Dina Vierny – a lady of the 20th century – was born by the Black Sea during the Russian Revolution 1919. Very soon, her family fled Staline and Dina never stopped fighting against this regime with ever renewed energy all along her life. In Paris, her city of adoption, she meets, at the age of 14, the left wing liberal intellectuals and very young she denounces the horror of the Iron Man’s regime.
Soon she meets poets and writers who introduce her to the major 20th century designers. In 1934, Dina Vierny meets Aristide Maillol who becomes her Pygmalion. Dina Vierny is only 15 years old and although the artist is 73, a fruitful collaboration begins. Dina Vierny is a choice model. Cultivated, very free as regards nudity and avant-gardiste towards Art. Maillol speaks highly of the merits of his model and introduces her to his friends Matisse and Bonnard, who also use her as a model for her shapes.
During the war, she continues her struggle for art in contact with André Breton’s surrealists in Marseilles, and for freedom by helping resistants to flee to Spain. She is arrested and jailed for six months in Fresnes before being released thanks to the mediation of Maillol.
In 1947, on the advice of Matisse, Dina Vierny opens her own Art Gallery 36, rue Jacob, where she introduces Russian artists such as Serge Poliakoff, members of the Cobra Group or photographers.
When in 1964 the donation of Maillol’s imposing sculptures are installed in the Tuileries Gardens by Malraux, Minister of Culture, Dina decides to launch her Foundation project.
Dina Vierny went through many a trial in her life which could have drowned many a one, but the trial of her life, her great project, for her posterity, was the launch of the Dina Vierny Foundation – the Maillol Museum – rue de Grenelle in Paris.
Naturally optimistic, a fighter, this lady never hesitated to say that this project was « superhuman, probably impossible….»; But she finalized it. She sacrificed much time and energy together with her children Olivier and Bernard, to impose as from 1995, what is today, in Paris, a worldwide and renowned Modern Art Museum.
Dina Vierny knew Renoir and Van Dongen. She was a friend of Picasso and Dufy. She also met other artists such as Vuillard, Duchamp-Villon, Saint Exupéry, Antonin Arthaud, Jean Pougny and all those she displayed in her Gallery.
Behind this very determined lady, hid a persevering collector full of wisdom and love. “ I have been collecting since the age of fourteen. My love and my understanding of all objects come from the surrealists. They opened my eyes on many things. It is the understanding of dreams and I have become a talented dreamer. So it is evident I would get on so well with the surrealists. I am interested and attracted to unusual objects. The strange object which is out of the ordinary, and which cannot be used for anything, is for me. I also have beautiful objects that are useful. For me, objects are characters; I consider them like human beings” she used to say. At 14 it started with antiques, then carriages, autographs and even stain glass windows, but the which haunted Dina Vierny. “There is no single object that has not been reproduce in miniature for dolls» said Dina Vierny.”
From the middle ages castle to the restaurant «Chez Maxim’s », from a church, to kitchens, to groceries, gardens, and drawing rooms, full of wooden dolls, mignonettes and beautiful Parisian dolls, in the middle of horse-drawn coaches and animals, nothing is missing in the ‘city’ she collected.
Behind this magnificent collection, look for the tender far-away moments of evasion of this little lady whose great personality defended both freedom and intelligence.
1 Alain Jaubert, Dina Vierny, Histoire de ma vie racontée à Alain Jaubert, Ed.Gallimard Témoin de l’Art, October 2009.
The Small secret world of Dina Vierny
Dolls, dollshouses and accessories Auction
Sale at Galerie de Chartres
Saturday, 27th march 2010