Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955) was a French painter who spent his career painting one hill of Paris, Montmartre. Born there to the artist and model Suzanne Valadon, he took up painting as a cure for alcoholism and became known for pale, quiet street scenes with almost nobody in them.
The work most admired today comes from his White Period, from about 1908 to 1914, when he built his walls out of thick white paint.
He is often told as the story of a drunk who happened to paint. The canvases tell a more deliberate one: the same streets and the same churches, again and again, for decades.
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Utrillo's streets are famous for being empty. Shuttered houses, walls the color of chalk, a road bending away with nobody on it, or at most a tiny figure at the far end. Together they look like a man walking alone through his own neighborhood at dawn.
But he was not walking there. In 1921 Utrillo left Montmartre for the Lyon region, and for much of the rest of his career he went on painting the hill he no longer lived on.
So the painter of Montmartre spent a large part of his career away from it. That raises the question behind the whole life: what was he looking at when he painted?
What You'll Discover
Who gave him his name.
Why a doctor wanted him painting.
What he mixed into his white paint.
Who shared the house on rue Cortot.
What he painted Montmartre from.