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 actually born there.

Utrillo was the offspring of a liaison between a teenage model, Suzanne Valadon (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon), and, so it is thought, a young amateur painter named Boissy. Utrillo's mother was a painter's model who posed for Berthe Morisot and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, as well as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec introduced her to the great master Edgar Degas, who taught and encouraged her to paint.

Another story about Utrillo's paternity comes from the memoir of one of his American collectors, Ruth Bakwin. Bakwin's unpublished memoirs recount the following anecdote, "after Maurice was born illegitimately to Suzanne Valadon, she went to Renoir, for whom she had modeled nine months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]

Les Trois Moulins de Montmartre

When a mental illness took hold of the 21 year old Utrillo, he was encouraged to paint by his mother. He soon showed real artistic talent. With no real training, other than what his mother taught him, he drew and painted what he saw all around him in Montmartre. He presented strange landscapes which delighted the man in the street and astonished the connoisseur. These pictures inspired many artists to re-examine their world and, instead of turning to abstraction, once again to re-create reality. However throughout his life, his mental disorder would result in his being regularly interned in mental asylums.

Critics only took note of him after 1910. By 1920, he had become a legendary figure, internationally known. 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 the very popular 1936 painting titled: Montmartre street corner / Lapin Agile. (See:Lapin Agile)

In 1935, at age 52, he married Lucie Valore and moved to Le Vesinet, just outside of Paris. By that time, he was too sick to work in the open air and painted his views looking at post cards and relying on his memory. Although his life was plagued by alcoholism, he lived into his seventies. Utrillo died on November 5, 1955, and is buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre.

[edit] 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.