Mao To Lai (1937?-2001)
Read the introductory text to Mao's work in the exhibition catalogJACQUES / MAO / MARYAN: HERE
Born in Vietnam at an uncertain date (1937?), under the name of Max Tolaï, he worked very young, probably as a docker, and learned
the technique of Indian ink drawing in a workshop where umbrellas are made.
As a child, he became deaf, affected by the violent explosion of a bomb. But other versions say that he suffered from a serious infection that was badly treated during his childhood, or on the boat during his journey to France.
Arriving in Paris around 18 at the end of the 1950s, he very quickly took up oil painting, trying his hand at streetscapes and greenery. He then signs "Tolet", the name which was attributed to him, no doubt, by the French administration.
During the period 1963-1973, to support himself, he worked at the Halles de Paris, while continuing to paint, and now signing MAO.
In the mid-1970s, he left Paris and moved to the South West of France, where he died in 2001.
EXHIBITIONS
In 1969-1970, Mao To Laï exhibited at the Claude Levin gallery (with Jacques Grinberg, Fernand Teyssier and Quilici), as well as in
cultural "clubs" in Germany and Norway.
Then, in the 1970s, her friend Cérès Franco exhibited her several times at her L'Œil de Boeuf gallery in Paris, at the Ivan Spence gallery in Ibiza, Spain (where the authorities censored and closed the exhibition) and at the Petite Galerie de Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, alongside artists such as Corneille, Michel Macréau, Yvon Taillandier, Hugh Weiss...
In the 1980s and 1990s, personal exhibitions were held at the Closerie des Lilas in Paris, at the MJC in Carcassonne (Image memory), and at the Midi Libre head office in
Narbonne (Public waste, exhibition with paintings from the 1960s and 70s, then censored by the prefecture, as they had
summer in 1973).
After his death in 2001, his works were presented by the Polad-Hardouin gallery (Paris) as well as in the exhibitions of theCeres Franco collectionrecently become a museum (Montolieu).