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.

The sculptures presented here help to piece together the life of a remarkable and complex artist, tracing Dalou’s career from his early years working in the decorative arts, to the culmination of his success as a renowned monument maker. Throughout his extraordinary career, his dedication to the working classes was unwavering. Dalou’s Monument to the Workers was intended to be his tribute to the members of society who he considered to be the most deserving of recognition and who were undoubtedly 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 labour, 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 the 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, visiting a fishing village near Sainte-Adresse to sketch fisherman and Toul in north-eastern France where he studied metal workers. The labourers who most fixated him 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, symbolising years of manual labour.

Ultimately the death of his wife Irma, and his own ill health prevented him from completing this final monument. Dalou made the decision to set aside this sculpture in favour of more lucrative endeavours when Irma died, to ensure he had made enough provisions for his only child Georgette, who was disabled and needed constant care. Dalou died on 15 April 1902, in the last pages of his biography Dreyfus recounts his funeral writing; ‘Nothingsignalled to passers-by that they were attending the funeral of a great man. But suddenly, at the end of the Avenuedu Maine, on the Boulevard de Vaugirard, the spectacle became quite grandiose and deeply moving. It was a few minutes past eleven, and workers were pouring out of the many and varied factories and workshops located there and around the corner… workers from all industries, in their most varied working clothes, came quickly forward,but without disrespectful haste, and they all stopped, thoughtful and sad, at the side of the road where the modest funeral car was passing… If Dalou could have guessed that he would have such a funeral, he would have regarded it as the highest reward to which he had ever dared to aspire.’