Maurice Utrillo

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Maurice Utrillo, born Maurice Valadon, (December 25, 1883 - November 5, 1955) was a French painter who specialized in cityscapes. He is one of the most forged painters in history, yet his early works may fetch auction prices close to US$1 million.

Born on Christmas Day in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who was born there.

Utrillo is the son of Suzanne Valadon (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon), who would become a very successful painter. At the time of his birth she was a young model and art student. Speculation exists that he was the offspring from a liaison with an equally young amateur painter named, Boissy,or even, with the well established painter, Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes

Another story quoted about Utrillo's paternity comes from the memoir of one of his American collectors, Ruth Bakwin. Bakwin's unpublished memoirs recount the following humorous anecdote, "after Maurice was born to Suzanne Valadon, she went to Renoir, for whom she had modeled nine months previously. Renoir looked at the baby and said, 'He can't be mine, the color is terrible!' Next she went to Degas, for whom she had also modeled. He said, 'He can't be mine, the form is terrible!' At a cafe, Valadon saw an artist she knew named Miguel Utrillo, to whom she spilled her woes. The man told her to call the baby Utrillo: 'I would be glad to put my name to the work of either Renoir or Degas!'"^[1]

Suzanne Valadon, however, never revealed who had been the father of her child. While raising the child alone she became a well-paid painter, achieving financial success when many other contemporary painters in Paris were not.

Following a fall from a trapeze that prevented her from following her chosen career as a circus acrobat, Utrillo's mother became a painter's model who posed for Berthe Morisot and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, as well as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and many of the contemporary painters in Paris. She began to study their techniques in order to learn painting. Toulouse-Lautrec introduced her to the great master, Edgar Degas, who recognizing her talent, taught her and encouraged her to continue painting.

Eventually, she became a peer of the artists for whom she had modeled. In 1894 Valadon was the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. A perfectionist, Valadon worked for up to thirteen years on some of her oil paintings before showing them. She also worked in pastel. Unlike many of her peers, Valadon received acclaim and financial success during her lifetime.

When a mental illness took hold of the twenty-one year old Utrillo in 1904, he was encouraged to paint by his mother. He soon showed real artistic talent. With no training beyond what his mother taught him, he drew and painted what he saw in Montmartre. He painted landscapes that delighted his clients and astonished connoisseurs. His paintings inspired many artists to re-examine their work and, abandoning abstraction, once again to re-create reality. Throughout his life, however, his mental disorder would result in his being interned in mental asylums repeatedly.

Only after 1910 did art critics make note of his work. By 1920, he had become a legendary figure, whose paintings were known internationally. In 1929, the French government awarded him the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Today, tourists to the area will find many of his paintings on post cards, one of which is his very popular 1936 painting entitled, Montmartre Street Corner or Lapin Agile is displayed on the left.

In 1935, at the age of fifty-two, Maurice Utrillo married Lucie Valore and moved to Le Vesinet, just outside of Paris. By that time, he was too ill to work in the open air and painted landscapes viewed from windows, from post cards, and from memory.

Although his life also was plagued by alcoholism, he lived into his seventies. Maurice Utrillo died on November 5, 1955, and was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre.

References

• Jean Fabris, Claude Wiart, Alain Buquet, Jean-Pierre Thiollet, Jacques Birr, Catherine Banlin-Lacroix, Joseph Foret: Utrillo, sa vie, son oeuvre (Utrillo, his life, his works), Editions Frédéric Birr, Paris, 1982.

Notes

1. ^ New York Times, April 21, 2006

External links

• (French) site of Utrillo Estate
• (Polish) Art Gallery - Maurice Utrillo
• Utrillo's biography
• The Prodigious Century