Daniel Maillet was born 1956 in Zurich, spent his childhood in Valtellina Italy.
He studied visual communication at the CSIA in Lugano, Switzerland and continued his training as an engraver with his father Leo Maillet, an expressionist artist. He then attended the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. Daniel chooses portraits as his main subject and paints with life models on large formats. In 2001, he moved to Brazil, where he started modelling clay figures and life-size statues. Here, thanks to a community of Japanese master potters, he learnt the art of firing. Currently he lives between the Brazilian tropics and the hills of Monferrato in Italy.