Background

Maurice Utrillo was born on December 26, 1883, in Montmartre, Paris, Ile-de-France, France. He was the son of Marie-Clémentine Valadon, who was known as Suzanne Valadon. She had been a circus acrobat and then modelled for renowned painters like Renoir, Zandomeneghi, Toulouse Lautrec, and Puvis de Chavannes. Later, his mother also became a painter. She never revealed who was the father of her child. In 1891 a Spanish artist, Miguel Utrillo, signed a legal document acknowledging paternity, but it remains unknown whether he was the father of the child and never stayed in touch.

Education

An alcoholic, when Maurice Utrillo was twenty one, he took up painting at the encouragement of his mother as a therapy. He was largely self-taught.

Career

From 1903 to 1906 Utrillo painted in the suburbs around Paris and in Montmartre, in a sombre and impasto style which attracted the attention of the dealer Clovis Sagot and several other collectors. He usually signed his works, "Maurice Utrillo, V, " the "V" standing for his mother's name. Utrillo's work is remarkable in modern painting in that he adopts a conventional approach to subject matter, avoiding the distortions or transformations found in much of modern art, and yet attains at the same time a very personal and poetic expression. In his earlier paintings he used a rather heavy and somber palette.

After 1907 Utrillo lightened his palette and, from around 1910, began using a lot of white colour in his paintings, along with chalky/milky tones, which earned the name 'white period' for his activity between 1910 and 1916. In fact many critics consider that Utrillo did his best work during this period. From 1909, Utrillo began showing both at the Salon des Independants and the Salon d'Automne. But he had little contact with other painters. In 1913, he had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Blot. Unspectacular, it attracted little attention from reviewers.

After about 1916, he often turned to a more linear style and was frequently drawn to architectural subjects. Utrillo's painting is broad and rather soft in appearance, his brush technique is expressively manifest, and his color is used effectively to support the lyric mood of his work. After two exhibitions at the Galerie Weill, he was offered a contract by the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, and suddenly found himself the most fashionable artist of the day. Despite this recognition, Utrillo remained unstable, attempted suicide, and was taken by his mother to the Chateau de St Bernard in Ain, where, from 1923, he spent every summer. He designed the sets for Barabao, staged by Sergei Diaghilev for his company Ballets Russes.

In 1948 Utrillo designed sets for Charpentier's Louise at the Opera Comique, and in 1955 two panels, each 9ft high, were commissioned by the Hotel de Ville to decorate the Salle de la Commission des Beaux Arts.

Achievements

• Maurice Utrillo was an outstanding painter. He produced thousands of oil works, mainly of street scenes in the Montmartre district of Paris. His most highly regarded work is of his "white period" (circa 1909 – 1914), because of his lavish use of zinc white, which he sometimes mixed with plaster.
  
  His work is part of the collections at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Church in Suburbs

  • Saint-Vincent stree and the "Lapin Agile"

  • St. Germain Church

  • Houses in Ouessant

  • Moulin de la Galette

  • Orchampt street near Montmartre

  • Le Moulin de la Galette à Montmartre

    1915

  • Street at Corte

  • View of Montmagny

  • Mont-Cenis street in the Snow

  • Norvins street near Montmartre

  • Restaurant Bibet at Saint Bernard

  • Moulin de la Galette

  • Suburban Road

  • The Theatre l'Atelier

  • Landscape

  • Church and Street in Montmagny

  • Chaudoin House

  • Basilica

  • "Belle Gabrielle"

  • The Bernot's House

  • Street in Sannois

  • Fortification on the north of Paris

  • Square Tertre on Montmartre

  • Sacre-Coeur and Passage Cottin

  • House of Mimi Pinson

  • Benches at Montmagny (Val-d'Oise)

  • Mont St. Michel

  • Factory

  • View of Pontoise

  • Church of St. Leomer

  • Jonquiere Street

  • Near Montmagny

  • Village street

  • Beaulieu Church

  • Marcadet street

  • The Garden at Montmagny

  • Moulin de la Galette

  • Moulin de la Galette under the snow

  • Ravignan street

  • Seine

  • Land sale аt Gentilly

  • Chuch of Saint Margerit in Paris

  • Pontoise, l'Eperon Street and Street de la Coutellerie

  • The Bridges of Toulouse

  • Italian's house at Monmartre

  • Winter Scene

  • Windmills of Montmartre

  • The Quartier Saint-Romain at Anse, Rhone

  • Chapelle de Buis

  • Military hospital

  • The squre Abbesses in the Snow

  • Square Tertre on Montmartre

  • Sacre-Coeur

  • Nine

  • Church at Villiers le Bel

  • Church of St. Peter on Monmartre

  • Damiette Street in Sannois

  • Square Minimes

  • The Maquis of Montmartre Under the Snow

  • Street in Montmartre

  • Church of Sacre-Coeur

  • "Lapin Agile"

  • St. Vincent street

  • Church of St. Hilary

  • Donjon Street

  • Castle in Charente

  • Hector Berlioz's house

  • The Berlioz House

  • Mother Catherine's Restaurant in Montmartre

  • The Passage Cottin

  • Bridge and Church

  • Saint-Rustique street

  • House of Mimi Pinson

  • Vase with flowers

  • Sacre-Coeur

  • Moulin de la Galette under the snow

  • Abbesses street

  • Houses in Montmartre

  • "Lapin Agile"

  • Norvins street

  • Street

  • Notre Dame

  • Little Communicant, Church of Mourning

  • Church of St. Severin

  • Church Sacre-Couer

  • Moulin de la Galette on Montmartre

  • Untitled

  • Cabare "Belle Gabrielle"

  • Flowers

  • Moulin de la Galette

  • Moulin in Sannois under snow

  • Custine street near Montmartre

  • Moutier street and square de la Mairie

  • Rue Lepic

  • Church in Provence

  • The Windmill at Sannois

    1912

  • Suburban Street Scene

  • Street Mont-Cenis

  • Vase with flowers

  • Montmartre

  • Paris Street

  • Place Pigalle

  • La Butte Pinson

  • Notre-Dame de Clignantcourt

  • La Butte Pinson

  • Farm on L'Ile d'Ouessant (Finistere)

  • Square Tertre on Montmartre

  • St. Pierre de Montmartre

  • Church of St. Pierre and the dome of Sacre Coeur

  • Sacre-Coeur

  • House in the Suburbs of Paris

  • Snow over Montmartre

  • The Debray farm

  • "Lapin Agile"

  • Landscape in Saint-Bernard

  • Moulin de la Galette

  • Fot the ball of L’ A.A.A.A.- Magic City

  • The castle

  • The Passage (The Dead End)

  • The Church of St. Bernard, Ain, in Summer

  • Street in Nanterre

  • Les anciens moulins de Montmartre et la ferme Debray

    1923

  • A Street in a Suburb of Paris

  • Paintshop at Saint Ouen

  • Sacre-Coeur and castle Brouillards

  • La Place du Tertre

    1910

  • The House of Mimi Pinson in Montmartre

  • Gate Saint-Martin in Paris

  • Chartres Cathedral

  • Bernot House

  • Montmartre Street

  • Road in Argenteuil

  • Castle of Blois

  • Bievre

  • Asnieres street

  • Paris suburbs

  • Distillery of Saint-Denis

  • The gate Saint-Martin

  • Tholoze street

  • Chastelloux castle

  • Abbesses street

  • Moulin in Sannois

  • Bistros in a Suburb

  • Renoir's Garden

  • Basilica of St. Denis

  • Mont-Cenis street

  • Basilica of St. Denis

  • Church of Saint John the Baptiste

  • Moulin de la Galette and Sacre-Coeur

Views

Quotations: "On a particularly boring day, I had a clever but unfortunate inspiration. I seized a piece of cardboard, some tubes of tint and petroleum base - since I lacked real oil - and, confronting a typical Montmartre street corner, I suddenly found myself a practitioner of this difficult and thankless art of painting. "

"As recognition for my efforts, I received harsh sarcasm. Still, I pressed onward. In the beginning I sold my canvases for two francs, and later, little by little, I entered into this difficult career as my life's work."

Personality

Maurice Utrillo was a socially withdrawn and a recovering alcoholic.

Connections

In 1935, at the age of fifty-two, Maurice Utrillo married Lucie Valore, the widow of one of his collectors, Robert Pauwels.

Father:

Miguel Utrillo

Mother:

Suzanne Valadon

Spouse:

Lucie Utrillo

Friend:

Amedeo Modigliani

References

• Maurice Utrillo
  2014
• Maurice Utrillo This is a book in the Impressionism series in which the wonderful works of the undeservedly forgotten artist Maurice Utrillo are shown. There are more than 100 pictures of famous master in this ebook.
  2018
• Maurice Utrillo
  1982