Read the introductory text atwork de Mao in the exhibition catalogJACQUES GRINBERG / MAO TO LAI / MARYAN (PINCHAS BURSTEIN): 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 (alongside Jacques Grinberg, Fernand Teyssier, and Quilici), as well as in cultural "clubs" in Germany and Norway.
Then, in the 1970s, his friend Cérès Franco exhibited his work several times at her gallery L’Œil de Bœuf in Paris, at the Ivan Spence Gallery in Ibiza, Spain (where authorities censored and closed the exhibition), and at the Petite Galerie in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, alongside artists such as Corneille, Michel Macréau, Yvon Taillandier, and Hugh Weiss.
In the 1980s-1990s, solo exhibitions took place at the Closerie des Lilas in Paris, at the MJC de Carcassonne (Mémoire d’images), and at the headquarters of "Midi Libre" in Narbonne ("Déchets publics", an exhibition featuring paintings from the 1960s-70s that were censored by the prefecture, as they had been in 1973).
After his passing in 2001, his works were presented by the Polad-Hardouin gallery in Paris, as well as in exhibitions at La Coopérative-Musée Cérès Franco in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021, initiated by Dominique Polad-Hardouin and with occasional contributions by Jean-Hubert Martin.
Since late 2019, the Kaléidoscope Gallery represents the artist's estate.
The gallery displayed MAO in 2019 in the exhibition JACQUES / MAO / MARYAN.
Then in 2020, in ROSE(S) - Seven Painters from 1960 to Today - Color as Cultural Construction, with contributions by Michel Pastoureau in the catalog.
In 2021, the Gallery contributed to the organization of the first museum monographic exhibition at MANAS in Laval.