Ottilie Maclaren Wallace 1875-1947

Born in Edinburgh, Ottilie Maclaren[1] joined in 1895 the studio of the sculptor James Pittendrigh MacGillivray, an acquaintance of her father, a high-ranking magistrate and collector. In 1897, she managed to persuade her parents to allow her to go to Paris to further her artistic education. She first studied at the Académie Colarossi in Montparnasse, where she took lessons from Jean-Antoine Injalbert and Denys Puech, and became friends with the American sculptor Sarah Whitney. It was alongside Whitney that Maclaren attempted in 1899 to study under Camille Claudel, without success. That same year, it was finally Auguste Rodin who welcomed the two young artists into his studio. For more than two years, the young Scottish artist benefited from the master’s guidance and assisted him in his projects, notably in organizing the highly publicized pavilion exhibition at the Alma, held alongside the 1900 Exposition Universelle. Maclaren gradually developed a close relationship with Rodin, whom she described as a “father[2],” and whose artistic principles she adopted. Likely encouraged by the sculptor, she exhibited a plaster bust at the Salon of the Société Nationale in 1903, followed by another in bronze the following year. Above all, she regularly took part in the exhibitions of the Société Internationale des Sculpteurs, Peintres et Graveurs in London from 1905 onwards. It was also in the British capital that she opened a sculpture studio in 1904, aiming to promote Rodin’s aesthetic in the United Kingdom. At the same time, she was active within the Three Arts Club, composed of women artists, and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, where in 1906 one of her marbles, depicting a mask emerging from the clouds, was directly compared to the work of her master.

Dated 1909, the patinated plaster bust of a man we present illustrates in many ways the enduring influence Rodin exerted on the Scottish sculptor. It is signed “Wallace,” after the British composer William Wallace, whom Ottilie Maclaren married in Edinburgh in 1905, and whose surname she subsequently adopted for her exhibitions. Escaping the conventions of sculpted portraiture, this bust highlights the marks of modeling, deliberately left visible at the base and continuing in thick textures in the beard and hair. With its nervously pressed clay lumps, occasionally showing thumbprints, the fragmented, distinctly Rodinian texture of the lower portion contrasts with the smoother treatment of the face, creating the illusion that it emerges directly from the mass of clay. By emphasizing the traces of work, Maclaren here recalls Rodin’s demiurgic lesson, imposing the hand upon the chaos of matter. However, the sculptor diverges slightly from her master’s lyrical expressionism in the more synthetic rendering of her model’s features. Despite the prominent receding forehead and defined nose, she avoids emphasizing any protrusions, muscles, or wrinkles, and barely hollows the eyes, leaving their openness or closure ambiguous. Likely aware of this semantic departure, she adds a greater sense of expression and mystery to the bust by placing a hand against the right cheek, emerging from the mound of clay at the base. While the gesture may recall the sculpted portraits of Jean Dampt, its symbolism seems to reveal the inner life of the model, caught between reflection and distress, and thus represents the singular genius of Ottilie Maclaren.

[1] On this Scottish sculptor, see the scholarly work of Eva Belgherbi, author of a dissertation on her Paris years in 2016: Belgherbi, E., Ottilie Maclaren. Les années d’apprentissage dans l’atelier d’Auguste Rodin (1899-1901), research dissertation in art history, supervised by Claire Barbillon, École du Louvre, 2016.
[2] “For me, you are the eternal father I dreamed of as a child and never found [sic],” Letter from Ottilie Maclaren to Rodin, November 6 [before 1905]. File MAC-4035 “Ottilie Maclaren,” Paris, Musée Rodin. This symbolic filiation was highlighted by Eva Belgherbi: Belgherbi, E., “Ottilie Maclaren (1875-1947), ‘daughter’ of Rodin?” International Colloquium, September 2016: Parent-elles, compagne de, fille de, sœur de…: les femmes artistes au risque de la parentèle, Paris: AWARE; Poitiers: CRIHAM, University of Poitiers: Musée Sainte-Croix, 2017.