Maurice Utrillo
(1883-1955)

The Moulin de la Galette in Snow


Sacre Coeur in Winter
 

Born on Christmas day to an unwed mother, Maurice Utrillo was the boy who would become the artistic voice of Montmartre. One of the only artists of the turn of the century bohemian revolution to have actually been born in and lived in Montmartre, Utrillo had a love for the Parisian suburb like no other artist. It was his home town, and he revered it so that a majority of his life's work is cityscapes and landscapes of Montmartre. Many of his famous paintings now grace postcards to represent the town and its famous golden period.

Though known to us as Utrillo, his birth name was actually Maurice Valadon. His mother was a fashion designer, model, circus rider and an artist who painted under the name Suzanne Valadon. Through his mother, he became introduced to bohemian society, and at a very young age, rubbed elbows with Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas. As a young child, his last name was changed to Utrillo as a sort of gift from family friend and art critic Miguel Utrillo, probably to mask his illegitimacy.

Utrillo was raised by and lived with his grandmother, who was said to have spiked his soup with wine as a sleep aid. This would cause him to become dependent on alcohol for the rest of his life, and by the time he was 18, he was sent to rehab for alcohol addiction. In a way, substance abuse would be his vice, but also his reason for painting. As part of his rehabilitation, Utrillo's mother suggested that he paint, and paint he did. Over the next fifty or so years of his life and career, he literally produced thousands of paintings of his beloved Montmartre. As a young man, he still struggled with his addictions and would have many relapses with alcohol and substances throughout his life. Somehow, he always overcame these obstacles and painted anyway, never losing his talent or his ability to paint.

Notre Dame
 

He didn't become well-known or even recognized for his work until an exhibit around 1910. Before then, as a young man he would often trade his canvases for food, shelter and wine. This bartering method left no real record of sales, and in his catalog, there are few paintings that are dated before the early 1900s. These works are generally landscapes, such as "The Seine" (1905) and "View of Montmagny" (1903). How many other Utrillo's are in existence from this period and are unknown and unidentified? The bartering process and the fact that he was such a prolific painter leaves the possibility for new found Utrillo's very open.

View of Montmagny
 

Generally, Utrillo produced oil on canvas paintings. However, during his early period, Utrillo also produced a mass of watercolors, gouaches and pencil sketches. Are some of his study pieces from the turn of the century still floating around somewhere in Montmartre?

Strangely, Utrillo had no formal training, except possibly from his mother, who was mentored by Degas. While he was inspired himself by Impressionism, his style is certainly not Impressionist. His landscapes have a strange and eerie feel, but the composition is almost perfect in every painting. Some say that he used Cubist influences in his paintings, and others even like to group him together with the Realists. The truth is, Utrillo cannot be classified. He simply had a talent for painting and an eye for subject matter, composition and colors that no formal teachings could ever have taught.

One way to tell if you own a Utrillo or not is to look for an extraordinary sense of depth in the painting. His work was almost picturesque in detail of depth, as "Paris Street" (1914) shows. Utrillo also went through a "white period" from 1909-1914, producing canvases of little color, or Parisian streets blanketed in snow. These paintings, such as "La Place des Abesesses Sous la Neige" (1917) painted after this period, were breathtaking and showed the city in a new light. Paintings from this period have sold for thousands of dollars.

Paris Street
 

While Utrillo would sometimes paint still life pictures of flower vases, he rarely did anything but landscapes and cityscapes. Most of his paintings are dominated by the cafe's, street shops a buildings in Montmartre. No portraiture's are in his catalog, and no other type of painting, abstract or otherwise are under his credit. He simply painted his crumbling little hometown of Montmartre as he saw it. People in his paintings are almost like wooden dolls; faceless and without detail. They were only necessary decoration for his cityscapes, as he would give his all to adding detail to the composition and the architecture of the buildings. More often than not, his work also gives no evidence of weather or season, except for his snow scenes. He had no political or social message to make with his paintings, and seemed to paint for the sheer joy and focus that it brought to his life.

Utrillo died in Montmartre in 1955 and is buried there as well. Towards the end of his life he became highly religious, and was able to better fight his addictions with the aid of his wife. Today, his works are housed all over Europe and the United States and are a reminder of the little suburb that harbored some of the greatest artists of the 1900s.

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