Editing Maurice Utrillo

{{Short description|French painter (1883–1955)}} 
{{Infobox artist
| name          = Maurice Utrillo
| image         = Maurice Utrillo, par Suzanne Valadon.jpg
| image_size    = 230px
| caption       = ''Portrait of Maurice Utrillo'' (1921), by [[Suzanne Valadon]], his mother
| birth_name    = Maurice Valadon
| birth_date    = {{birth date|1883|12|26|df=y}}
| birth_place   = [[Montmartre]], Paris, France
| death_date    = {{death date and age|1955|11|5|1883|12|26|df=y}}
| death_place   = [[Dax, Landes|Dax]], Aquitaine, France
| nationality   = French
| field         = Painting
| training      = Self-taught
| movement      =
| spouse        = {{ill|Lucie Valore|fr}}
| partner       = 
| parents       = [[Suzanne Valadon]] (mother)<br/>[[Miquel Utrillo]] (legal father)
| father        = 
| mother        = 
| relatives     = 
| family        = 
| works         =
| patrons       = 
| influenced by =
| influenced    =
| awards        =
| signature        = Utrillo, Maurice 1883-1955 Signatur.jpg
}}
'''Maurice Utrillo''' ({{IPA|fr|mɔʁis ytʁijo, moʁ-|lang}}; born '''Maurice Valadon'''; 26 December 1883 – 5 November 1955) was a French painter of the [[School of Paris]] who specialized in [[cityscape]]s. From the [[Montmartre]] quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre to have been born there.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.artnet.com/artists/maurice-utrillo/|title=Maurice Utrillo {{!}} artnet|website=www.artnet.com|access-date=2016-05-03}}</ref>

==Biography==
[[File:(Barcelona) Photographie de Suzanne Valadon et de Maurice Utrillo.jpg|thumb|left|Maurice Utrillo and his mother [[Suzanne Valadon]], 1890]]
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 the father of her child; speculation exists that he was the offspring of a liaison with an equally young amateur painter named Boissy, or with the well-established painter [[Pierre Puvis de Chavannes|Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes]], or even with [[Pierre-Auguste Renoir|Renoir]].<ref name="The New Yorker - 7 February 2012 - Renoir at The Frick: Go See Dance at Bougival">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/renoir-at-the-frick-go-see-dance-at-bougival|title=Renoir at The Frick: Go See "Dance at Bougival"|last=Peter Schjeldahl|author-link=Peter Schjeldahl|date=7 February 2012|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|access-date=13 September 2014}}</ref> (See below under ''[[#Paternity|Paternity]]''). In 1891 a Spanish artist, [[Miquel Utrillo]], signed a legal document acknowledging paternity, although the question remains as to whether he was in fact the child's father.{{sfn |Warnod |1981 |p=48}}

Valadon, who became a model after a fall from a [[trapeze]] ended her chosen career as a circus [[acrobatics|acrobat]],{{sfn |Warnod |1981 |p=13}} 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]].{{sfn |Warnod |1981 |pp=57–59}} When [[schizophrenia]] 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]].{{sfn |Warnod |1981 |p=85}} Throughout his life, however, he was interned in mental asylums repeatedly.

Today, tourists to the area will find many of his paintings on postcards, 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 [[:fr:Lucie Valore|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, Landes|Dax]], at age 72,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DS19551105-02.2.17|title=Desert Sun 5 November 1955 Edition 02 — California Digital Newspaper Collection|website=cdnc.ucr.edu|access-date=23 August 2018}}</ref> of a lung disease, and was buried in the [[Cimetière Saint-Vincent]] in [[Montmartre]].

==Paternity==
[[Image:Utrillo - Tombe - Cimetière Saint-Vincent (Paris).jpg|thumb|Tomb of Utrillo, Cemetery Saint Vincent, Paris]]

An apocryphal anecdote told by [[Diego Rivera]] concerning Utrillo's paternity is related in the unpublished memoirs of one of his American collectors, [[Ruth Morris Bakwin|Ruth Bakwin]]:

<blockquote>"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!'"<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/22/arts/design/22gogh.html?pagewanted=print 'Parting With the Family van Gogh' in the ''New York Times,'' 22 April 2006]</ref></blockquote>

==2010 exhibitions and sale==
In 2010, several retrospective exhibitions were staged, at [[Oglethorpe University]] Museum of Art<ref>[http://www.reporternewspapers.net/2010/06/03/pastel-exhibit-utrillo-oils-create-colorful-contrast-at-oglethorpe/ "Pastel exhibit, Utrillo oils create colorful contrast at Oglethorpe"], Chris North, reporter newspapers.net, 3&nbsp;June 2010, accessed 1 December 2010</ref> and in [[Montmartre]] (Paris) that culminated in an auction of 30 of Utrillo's works on 30&nbsp;November 2010<ref name="Pétridès">[http://www.artcurial.com/en/news/press_releases/2010/2010_11_30_1933-collection-paul-petrides-maurice-utrillo.asp PAUL PÉTRIDÈS COLLECTION: 30 Works by Maurice Utrillo] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101206005224/http://www.artcurial.com/en/news/press_releases/2010/2010_11_30_1933-collection-paul-petrides-maurice-utrillo.asp |date=6 December 2010 }}, accessed 1 December 2010 ({{ill|Paul Pétridès|fr}} (1901–93) was Utrillo's dealer from 1937, and the author of the catalogue raisonné of his work.)</ref> from the collection of {{ill|Paul Pétridès|fr}}, Utrillo's art dealer, whose {{ill|Galerie Pétridès|fr}} also dealt with the likes of [[Jacques Thévenet]]. This follows the exhibition of Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo's works held in Paris in 2009.<ref name="Pétridès"/>

== Nazi-looted art ==
In 2022, Utrillo's ''Carrefour à Sannois'' which the Nazis had looted from the French Jewish art collector and dealer [[Georges Bernheim]] in 1940, was restituted to the heirs after a long legal battle. The city of [[Sannois]] (Val-d'Oise) had bought the painting at [[Sotheby's]] in 2004. In 2015 the Commission responsible for dealing with Nazi-looted art (the CIVS) advised the town that the painting had been looted. A new law  voted by France's [[National Assembly (France)|National Assembly]] in 2022 paved the way for restitution. <ref>{{Cite web |last=à 17h26 |first=Par Christophe Lefèvre Le 30 mai 2022 |date=2022-05-30 |title=Sannois : le tableau de Maurice Utrillo spolié pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale rendu à son propriétaire |url=https://www.leparisien.fr/val-d-oise-95/sannois-le-tableau-de-maurice-utrillo-spolie-pendant-la-seconde-guerre-mondiale-rendu-a-son-proprietaire-30-05-2022-ATAI3E6FPRCKTBBDQUC5QYWMUY.php |access-date=2023-01-14 |website=leparisien.fr |language=fr-FR}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Sannois. 82 ans après son vol par les nazis, la toile d'Utrillo enfin rendue à son légataire |url=https://actu.fr/ile-de-france/sannois_95582/sannois-82-ans-apres-son-vol-par-les-nazis-la-toile-d-utrillo-rendue-a-son-legataire_51318000.html |access-date=2023-01-14 |website=actu.fr |date=30 May 2022 |language=fr}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Gros plan sur la restitution des œuvres spoliées par les nazis |url=https://www.lagazettedescommunes.com/804451/gros-plan-sur-la-restitution-des-oeuvres-spoliees-par-les-nazis/ |access-date=2023-01-14 |website=La Gazette des Communes |language=fr-FR}}</ref>

==In popular culture==
Utrillo is played by [[Bruno Gouery]] in the 2024 film ''[[Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness]]'' directed and co-produced by [[Johnny Depp]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pulver |first=Andrew |date=2023-05-11 |title=Johnny Depp casts Al Pacino in biopic of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/may/11/johnny-depp-casts-al-pacino-in-biopic-of-italian-artist-amedeo-modigliani |access-date=2023-10-25 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Goodfellow |first=Melanie |date=2023-09-27 |title=Johnny Depp's 'Modi' Adds New Cast As Shoot Gets Underway In Hungary |url=https://deadline.com/2023/09/johnny-depp-modi-luisa-ranieri-shoot-begins-in-hungary-1235557352/ |access-date=2023-10-25 |website=Deadline |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Selected works==
<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">
File:Maurice Utrillo - 'La Rue Norvins à Montmartre', oil on board painting, c. 1910.jpg|''La Rue Norvins à Montmartre'', 1910
File:Place du Tertre.jpeg|''Place du Tertre'', 1911
File:Musée des Beaux Arts de Nancy - Rue Lepic, le Moulin de la galette - M Utrillo.jpg
File:Maurice Utrillo - Rue du Mont-Cenis (Marmottan).jpg
</gallery>

==See also==
* [[Musée de Montmartre]], former home in Montmartre

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
*Coughlan, Robert (1951). ''The Wine of Genius: A Life of Maurice Utrillo''. New York: Harper & Brothers.
*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.
*Longstreet, Stephen and Ethel (1958). ''Man of Montmartre: A Novel Based on the Life of Maurice Utrillo''. New York: Funk & Wagnells.
*{{cite book |last=Warnod |first=Jeanine |translator-last=Jennings |translator-first=Shirley |publication-place=New York |title=Suzanne Valadon |year=1981 |isbn=9780517544990 |oclc=7573059}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20071214084230/http://mushecht.haifa.ac.il/hecht/art/Artist-Collection-eng.aspx?id=25 Hecht Museum]
* {{in lang|fr}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20110201174434/http://utrillo.com/ site of Utrillo Estate]
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/utrillo_maurice.html ArtCyclopedia - Maurice Utrillo]
* [https://wikilivres.org/wiki/Maurice_Utrillo Works by Maurice Utrillo]{{dead link|date=January 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}

{{Suzanne Valadon|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2017}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Utrillo, Maurice}}
[[Category:1883 births]]
[[Category:1955 deaths]]
[[Category:Painters from Paris]]
[[Category:French people of Spanish descent]]
[[Category:20th-century French painters]]
[[Category:20th-century French male artists]]
[[Category:French male painters]]
[[Category:French modern painters]]
[[Category:People of Montmartre]]
[[Category:Suzanne Valadon]]
[[Category:19th-century French male artists]]
[[Category:People with schizophrenia]]