Maurice Utrillo
Encyclopedia
Maurice Utrillo, moʁis ytʁijo, born Maurice Valadon, (26 December 18835 November 1955) was a French
painter
who specialized in cityscape
s. Born in the Montmartre
quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there.
(born Marie-Clémentine Valadon), who was then an eighteen-year-old artist's model. She never revealed who had been the father of her child; speculation exists that he was the offspring from a liaison with an equally young amateur painter named Boissy, or with the well established painter, Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes
, or even with Renoir
(see below under Utrillo's Paternity). In 1891 a Spanish artist, Miguel Utrillo y Molins, signed a legal document acknowledging paternity, although the question remains as to whether he was in fact the child's father.
Valadon, who had become a model after a fall from a trapeze
ended her chosen career as a circus
acrobat
, found that posing for Berthe Morisot
, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
, and others provided her with an opportunity to study their techniques; in some cases, she had also become their mistress. She taught herself to paint, and when Toulouse-Lautrec introduced her to Edgar Degas
, he became her mentor. Eventually she became a peer of the artists she had posed for.
Meanwhile, her mother was left in charge of raising the young Maurice, who soon showed a troubling inclination toward truancy
and alcoholism
. When a mental illness took hold of the 21-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. After 1910 his work attracted critical attention, and by 1920 he was internationally acclaimed. In 1928, the French government awarded him the Cross of the Légion d'honneur
. Throughout his life, however, his mental disorder would result in his being interned in mental asylums repeatedly.
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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
.
In middle age Utrillo became fervently religious and in 1935, at the age of fifty-two, he 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 5 November 1955, and was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre
.
anecdote
told by Diego Rivera
concerning Utrillo's paternity is related in the unpublished memoirs of one of his American collectors, Ruth Bakwin:
Museum of Art and in Montmartre
(Paris
) that culminated in an auction of 30 of Utrillo's works on 30 November 2010 from the collection of Paul Pétridès, Utrillo's art dealer, whose Galerie Pétridès also dealt with the likes of Jacques Thévenet. This follows the 2009 exhibition of Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo's works held in Paris in 2009.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
who specialized in cityscape
Cityscape
A cityscape is the urban equivalent of a landscape. Townscape is roughly synonymous with cityscape, though it implies the same difference in urban size and density implicit in the difference between the words city and town. In urban design the terms refer to the configuration of built forms and...
s. Born in the Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there.
Biography
Utrillo was the son of the artist Suzanne ValadonSuzanne Valadon
Suzanne Valadon was a French painter born Marie-Clémentine Valadon at Bessines-sur-Gartempe, Haute-Vienne, France. In 1894, Valadon became the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts...
(born Marie-Clémentine Valadon), who was then an eighteen-year-old artist's model. She never revealed who had been the father of her child; speculation exists that he was the offspring from a liaison with an equally young amateur painter named Boissy, or with the well established painter, Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was a French painter, who became the president and co-founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and whose work influenced many other artists.-Life:...
, or even with Renoir
Renoir
-People with the surname Renoir :* Pierre-Auguste Renoir , French painter* Pierre Renoir , French actor and son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir* Jean Renoir , French film director and son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir...
(see below under Utrillo's Paternity). In 1891 a Spanish artist, Miguel Utrillo y Molins, signed a legal document acknowledging paternity, although the question remains as to whether he was in fact the child's father.
Valadon, who had become a model after a fall from a trapeze
Trapeze
A trapeze is a short horizontal bar hung by ropes or metal straps from a support. It is an aerial apparatus commonly found in circus performances...
ended her chosen career as a circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
acrobat
Acrobatics
Acrobatics is the performance of extraordinary feats of balance, agility and motor coordination. It can be found in many of the performing arts, as well as many sports...
, found that posing for Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot
Berthe Morisot was a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.In 1864, she exhibited for the first...
, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
, and others provided her with an opportunity to study their techniques; in some cases, she had also become their mistress. She taught herself to paint, and when Toulouse-Lautrec introduced her to Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, he became her mentor. Eventually she became a peer of the artists she had posed for.
Meanwhile, her mother was left in charge of raising the young Maurice, who soon showed a troubling inclination toward truancy
Truancy
Truancy is any intentional unauthorized absence from compulsory schooling. The term typically describes absences caused by students of their own free will, and usually does not refer to legitimate "excused" absences, such as ones related to medical conditions...
and alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. When a mental illness took hold of the 21-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. After 1910 his work attracted critical attention, and by 1920 he was internationally acclaimed. In 1928, the French government awarded him the Cross of the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
. Throughout his life, however, his mental disorder would result in his being interned in mental asylums repeatedly.
Lapin Agile
Lapin Agile is a famous Montmartre cabaret, at 22 Rue des Saules, 18th arrondissement of Paris, France.It was originally called "Cabaret des Assassins". Tradition relates that the cabaret received this name because a band of assassins broke in and killed the owner's son...
.
In middle age Utrillo became fervently religious and in 1935, at the age of fifty-two, he married Lucie Valore and moved to Le Vesinet
Le Vésinet
Le Vésinet is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris from the center....
, 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 5 November 1955, and was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
.
Concerning Utrillo's Paternity
An apocryphalApocrypha
The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....
anecdote
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
told by Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
concerning Utrillo's paternity is related in the unpublished memoirs of one of his American collectors, Ruth Bakwin:
"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!'"
2010 exhibitions and sale
In 2010, several retrospective exhibitions were staged, at Oglethorpe UniversityOglethorpe University
Oglethorpe University is a private liberal arts college in Brookhaven, Georgia, an inner suburb of Atlanta. It was chartered in 1835 and named after James Edward Oglethorpe, the state's founder.-History:...
Museum of Art and in Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
(Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
) that culminated in an auction of 30 of Utrillo's works on 30 November 2010 from the collection of Paul Pétridès, Utrillo's art dealer, whose Galerie Pétridès also dealt with the likes of Jacques Thévenet. This follows the 2009 exhibition of Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo's works held in Paris in 2009.
External links
- Hecht Museum site of Utrillo Estate
- ArtCyclopedia - Maurice Utrillo
- Works by Maurice Utrillo