Maurice Utrillo— Three Important Works!

Born on December 26, 1883 in Paris, France, Maurice Utrillo became a painting inheriting the inclination from his mother. His mother, Suzanne Valadon, was the painter and a model of the artists. He was always encouraged by his mother and he had been inspired with the artworks of Impressionists. He admired the Impressionists artists’ movement and followed the artworks of Impressionists Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro. With his inclinations toward art since the very beginning, Utrillo embarked on a career of an artist. He was largely self-taught and his painting reflected his sufferings from the bouts of madness. He had been referred to as one of the ‘les maudits’ (the cursed) and shared the tag with his friend Amedeo Modigliani. These two painters led a life fueled by alcohol and bohemianism and this lifestyle which ultimately led Modigliani to his death. Utrillo kept on breathing and creating artworks out of his madness and died later on November 5, 1955 in Dax, France. Today, Maurice Utrillo‘s works are celebrated and displayed in the collections of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, among others. 

These works are available online for anyone to have a look at. Explore these works and if these paintings entice you enough buy Maurice Utrillo’s paintings online. Some of Maurice Utrillo’s works showcase the many ups and downs and the many phases of his practice, they portray his influences and inclinations and the time he breated and created works of art. Some of these works, especially the once created after he was established through the mid-way of his artistic career deserves a closer look. Here are a few details about Maurice Utrillo’s thee important works.

Description of Artworks & Analysis: This work of art portrays another Montmartre landmark, the Berlioz House, which was located around the corner of the rue du Mont-Cenis and rue Saint-Vincent. This house was inhabited by another very important figure in the previous century. Composer Hector Berlioz and his wife had lived in the very house between 1834 through 1837. This was long before Utrillo explored it and came to paint it. 

Maurice Utrillo probably explored the house in 1911 when the Cubist painter, Georges Braque, established his studio there and we can speculate that Maurice Utrillo might have visited the place around that time and he may actually have begun painting the house around that time though the painting was finally finished a few years later. Musée de l'Orangerie suggests that Maurice Utrillo might have reworked the painting adding one or two finer details like the French flag in 1914, after the First World War was declared.

Description of Artworks & Analysis: Not unlike so many of Maurice Utrillo’s other works, even this painting is also considered to be almost certainly based on a postcard image. This was the painting from which Maurice Utrillo might have painted the representation of the village, Maixe, which was located near Luneville in Lorraine in the eastern side of France. Maurice Utrillo emerged from his earlier "white period" into somewhat a more colorful and animated ones. It was more likely that Maurice Utrillo returned to brighter palettes and preferred more volumetric forms inspired by artists like Matisse and Chagall who worked in the Post-Cubist period. The painting almost celebrates the moment portrayed as the locals from the village step forward and offer themselves for a group portrait of the very region they inhabit. 

Post the 1920s Utrillo was slowly moving away from his earlier tendencies of the near flatness and started painting more austere and Cubism-inspired compositions with depth and color. The scene showcases the Town Hall appearing in the middle ground and Maurice Utrillo directs the focus towards the people of the village of Maixe. 

Description of Artworks & Analysis: During 1927, Paul Petridès, the young Cypriot had moved to Paris aspiring to be a tailor and he started working as an apprentice under a well-known gentlemen's tailor, Mazella, who was acquiring the works of the avant garde artists including Picasso, Vlaminck, and Utrillo. Petridès was a huge follower and was most taken with the works of Utrillo.  Maurice Utrillo, by the late 1920s, has become legendary in his reclusiveness. Petridès eventually met Utrillo and he later acquired the largest collection of Utrillo's works. The colorful painting depicts one among the many winding streets located in the labyrinthine of the area of Montmartre. 

This painting evokes a feeling of retaining a village separate from the bustle of the city of Paris. Ironically, later on, critics identified his so-called "white period" to be the most successful stretch of Maurice Utrillo’s oeuvre, possibly during this period his style was closely in-sync with that of the Cubist circle, yet it is noteworthy that after only Utrillo began to incorporate more colors into his paintings, the selling factor of Maurice Utrillo jumped up with any real regularity.

Maurice Utrillo’s evolution as a painter has been depicted in these three paintings and these are the ones that one can investigate to understand the reclusiveness of Maurice Utrillo’s celebrated oeuvre. Maurice Utrillo’s paintings are all available online for his admirers. Explore the works by him and buy Maurice Utrillo paintings online.