French sculptor, equestrian, socialite and art dealer, born at Anzin, near Valenciennes in North West France in 1877, and died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1942. Little is known of his early years, though he is said to have received encouragement from the sculptor Emmanuel Frémiet. At the Paris Salon of 1908 he showed two horse subjects. Although horse portraiture became his stock-in-trade, his other animal subjects included elephants, lynx, dogs and deer. In addition, his portrait skills applied to human subjects led to his being patronised by European royalty and the upper crust. During the First World War, he served with the 5th Regiment of the Cuirassiers of Cambrai. By this time, he had acquired some celebrity in the equestrian milieu. In 1930, in England, where he was a member of the Cavalry Club, he offered his assistance to the sculptor Alfred Hardiman in the execution of the horse for the Whitehall statue of Field Marshal Haig, an offer which Hardiman declined to accept. Malissard’s moment of glory came with the erection of two bronze casts of his equestrian statue of Marshal Foch, one in Mont Cassel in France in 1928, the other in Grosvenor Gardens, London, in 1930. He was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1933. When, during the Second World War he experienced difficulty in finding sculpture commissions, he briefly became an art dealer.
Bibliography: E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, graveurs (14 vols), Paris, 1999; Sladmore Gallery website: ‘George Mallisard’; P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Volume 1, Liverpool, 2011, pp. 51–53, 422, 458.
Philip Ward-Jackson, 2011; revised January 2025
George Malissard working on the maquette for his statue of General Foch, c.1927 (photo: public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
