Biography

Lucile Passavant, France (1910-2012)

Lucile Passavant was a French poet, pastel painter, sculptor and wood engraver born in Paris on June 11, 1910 and died in Poissy on April 2, 2012.

She lived with Aristide Maillol and worked for him as a wood engraver and model for several years.

1910: Birth in Paris of a doctor father and a milliner mother, she spent her childhood in Belgium.
1918: She is back in Paris with her mother.
1920: First poems and stencils.
1921: Due to family disputes, she interrupts her studies and becomes a saleswoman in a bakery.
1927: She struggles to make a living by making days on silk, and continues her apprenticeship in drawing at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in the evening.
1928: Aristide Maillol, the famous sculptor, whose mistress she became, welcomed her to Marly le Roi. He teaches her wood engraving. After three years solely as the artist’s model, she became his wood engraver and remained so for ten years.
1929: Production of his first clay, which attracts the attention of Kessler, Maurice Denis, Ker Xavier Roussel.
1931: Marriage and honeymoon in Europe, she begins her series of pastels in Mareil-Marly.
1938: She settles in Orgeval.
1942: She exhibits at the Salon d’Automne.
1945: She builds with her husband the « Vallée Maria » in Morainvilliers, and creates the « Extraordinary Garden ». Exhibition at Jeanne Castel, where she meets Claude Roger Markx.
1950: Realization of the woodcuts of Les Bucoliques, published in 1951 by Philippe Gonin, having also printed Les Georgiques, illustrated by Aristide Maillol.
1954-1955: First bronze sculptures. Exhibition at the André Maurice Gallery.
1964: René Drouet Gallery exhibition.
1965: Many exhibitions in France, in London, Galerie René Drouet, Schmidt.
1966-1968: Exhibition « Les Trois Dimensions » at the Galerie Vendôme ».
1972: Exhibition at the Paul Valery Museum in Sète, international exhibitions in Lugano, Castelananza, Milan.
1973: International exhibition in Sète.
1975-1984: Ceases all exhibitions.
1987: Le Vésinet Exhibition, Parc de Bagatelle, Taylor Foundation.
2012: Death in Poissy. France