The Sacré-coeur in Montmartre

Reference: S42292
Author Maurice UTRILLO
Year: 1927
Measures: 195 x 235 mm
Not Available

Reference: S42292
Author Maurice UTRILLO
Year: 1927
Measures: 195 x 235 mm
Not Available

Description

Lithograph, 1927, signed in plate lower right.

Edition of 105 proofs. 

French painter born in Paris in 1883, died in 1955. He is known as well for his painting, his alcoholism, as his mother, Suzanne Valadon who was the model of the greatest painters of Montmartre and also a painter herself. Utrillo has from the beginning been noticed by critics, and his acclaimed painting, with its so-called white period that lasted from 1905 to 1915, consisted of paintings of a very particular style where the painter transcribed the whitish walls of Montmartre by tying its colors with glue and chalk powder. Then he will animate the alleys once deserted small silhouettes seen from back to forms more and more generous. From 1919 his fame will free him from any financial problem.

He painted Montmartre so much where he was born where he spent much of his life that he became one of the symbols. If one asks who is the painter who has the most and best represented Montmartre, one can only quote his name. 

Bibliografia

Jean Fabris, Utrillo. sa vie, son oeuvre, n. 12.

Maurice UTRILLO (Parigi 1883 - Dax 1955)

Maurice Utrillo, born Maurice Valadon, was a French painter of School of Paris who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there. Utrillo was the son of the artist Suzanne Valadon (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon), who was then an eighteen-year-old artist's model. She never revealed who was 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. In 1891 a Spanish artist, Miquel Utrillo (Miquel Utrillo i Morlius), signed a legal document acknowledging paternity, although the question remains as to whether he was in fact the child's father. Valadon, who became a model after a fall from a trapeze ended her chosen career as a circus acrobat, found that posing for Berthe Morisot, Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others provided her with an opportunity to study their techniques. 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 to raise 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, his mother encouraged him to take up painting. 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, he was interned in mental asylums repeatedly. In middle age Utrillo became fervently religious and in 1935, at the age of fifty-two, he married Lucie Valore and moved to Le Vésinet, just outside Paris. By that time, he was too ill to work in the open air and painted landscapes viewed from windows, from postcards, and from memory. Although his life also was plagued by alcoholism, he lived into his seventies. Maurice Utrillo died on 5 November 1955 in Hotel Splendid in Dax of a lung disease, and was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre.

Maurice UTRILLO (Parigi 1883 - Dax 1955)

Maurice Utrillo, born Maurice Valadon, was a French painter of School of Paris who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there. Utrillo was the son of the artist Suzanne Valadon (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon), who was then an eighteen-year-old artist's model. She never revealed who was 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. In 1891 a Spanish artist, Miquel Utrillo (Miquel Utrillo i Morlius), signed a legal document acknowledging paternity, although the question remains as to whether he was in fact the child's father. Valadon, who became a model after a fall from a trapeze ended her chosen career as a circus acrobat, found that posing for Berthe Morisot, Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others provided her with an opportunity to study their techniques. 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 to raise 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, his mother encouraged him to take up painting. 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, he was interned in mental asylums repeatedly. In middle age Utrillo became fervently religious and in 1935, at the age of fifty-two, he married Lucie Valore and moved to Le Vésinet, just outside Paris. By that time, he was too ill to work in the open air and painted landscapes viewed from windows, from postcards, and from memory. Although his life also was plagued by alcoholism, he lived into his seventies. Maurice Utrillo died on 5 November 1955 in Hotel Splendid in Dax of a lung disease, and was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre.