Antoine Malliarakis Mayo, “La Vie Augmente Toujours (Life Always Evolves”), Oil on Canvas, 1970, 81 x 65cm
Antoine Malliarakis Mayo is a Greek painter of French culture. He is generally classified as a surrealist, a movement in which he participated actively but never officially joined. Received at the Beaux Arts in Paris in 1924, Mayo took part in the Surrealist meetings and became friends with Desnos and Prévert.
In the 1940s May created costumes and sets for theater and for the cinema with increasing success. After having made the costumes for Marcel Carné’s masterpiece “Les Enfants du Paradis”, he designed the costumes for: “The Beauty of the Devil” and “The Golden Helmet (The Land of the Pharaohs)” by Howard Hawks.
The paintings of Mayo revolved around the common themes of sensuality and eroticism which took different forms within his oeuvre. In particular after the 1960s, Mayo would paint the hands, then the bird nests – which for him housed and protected the root of life – followed by the egg, as these common themes reached a pinnacle within his scope of work.
The egg for Mayo represented the principle of life, rebirth and the fruit of life. “La Vie Augmente Toujours”, painted in the later part of Mayo’s artistic career is an exceptional work weaving through this visual language created by Mayo incorporating the vegetal life, the egg, the stones and the male figure.