Maurice Utrillo: The Complete Story
Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955) was the painter of empty Montmartre streets, the son of the artist Suzanne Valadon, who was pushed to paint as therapy for alcoholism at nineteen and turned that prescription into one of the most recognizable street views in art.
His life is usually told as a cautionary tale. The paintings tell a more interesting one.
Maurice Utrillo at a glance
1883. Born in Montmartre to Suzanne Valadon, then an eighteen year old artists’ model. No father was named.
1904. Began painting on doctor’s orders, as therapy after treatment for alcoholism. He was 21.
1909. First acceptance at the Salon d’Automne, the start of slow recognition.
1935. Married Lucie Valore, who managed his life, his output, and his visitors.
1955. Died in Dax at 71 and was buried in the little Saint-Vincent cemetery in Montmartre.
A prescription, not a calling
Born in Montmartre in 1883 to the eighteen-year-old model Suzanne Valadon, father officially unknown, Maurice took his surname from the Spanish critic Miguel Utrillo, who signed the recognition papers in 1891.
He was drinking by his teens, and around 1902, on medical advice, his mother put a paintbox in his hands to keep him out of the bars. The therapy took, at least on canvas.
The White Period
Between about 1908 and 1914 he painted the works that made him: the White Period, chalky facades of Montmartre built from zinc white he cut with plaster and glue for texture. The famous secret is that many were painted not on the street but from picture postcards, at a table, which makes their loneliness stranger, and entirely composed.
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Zinc white by the tube
In his best years Utrillo mixed plaster and glue into his whites to get the crumbling texture of Montmartre walls.
He went through zinc white by the case, laying it on with knives and even spoons.
Critics later named the era after the pigment: the White Period.
Painted behind a locked door
From the 1920s his mother and later his wife kept him indoors, away from bars, painting from postcards at a table.
Dealers waited downstairs. Canvases left the house still wet.
The arrangement looks harsh now. It also kept him alive for another thirty years.
The mother in the next room
Suzanne Valadon, his mother, was the better draftsman and knew it. She corrected his early work and built his first sales.
They exhibited together, with her partner André Utter, as the trio of the rue Cortot.
Her death in 1938 knocked something out of his painting that never came back.
The myth to retire
The legend files him as a drunken naif who dripped masterworks by accident.
Look at the White Period again: a deliberate materials experiment, a fixed repertoire of streets emptied of people, and a discipline his chaos never touched. The dealers saw it early.
By the 1920s he was among the best-selling painters in Paris, and France made him a knight of the Legion of Honour in 1928.
The quiet ending
In 1935 he married Lucie Valore, who managed his last, sober decades outside Paris. He painted Montmartre to the end, from memory and from those postcards, and died in 1955.
Where to see Utrillo
The Musee de Montmartre occupies 12 rue Cortot, the very house where he lived and worked beside his mother, and keeps their story on site. The Orangerie in Paris hangs a strong group from the Walter-Guillaume collection, and Sacre-Coeur, his favourite subject, is a short walk from both.
The Maurice Utrillo questions that keep coming up
What is Maurice Utrillo famous for? Empty Montmartre street scenes, above all his chalky White Period of 1908-1914.
Did Utrillo paint from postcards? Often, yes, working at a table from photographic cards rather than on the street.
Who was his mother? The painter Suzanne Valadon, a former model and a major artist in her own right.
Where can I see his work? The Orangerie and the Musee de Montmartre in Paris.
Why is it called the White Period? From roughly 1908 to 1914 Utrillo loaded his Montmartre walls with zinc white thickened with plaster and glue. Those canvases are now his most sought after.
Did Utrillo ever paint outdoors? Less and less. For most of his career he painted indoors from postcards and memory, which is why the same streets return again and again.
More secrets to unlock
Kept by the neighborhood he painted
He is buried in the little Saint-Vincent cemetery in Montmartre, a few steps from the lanes he painted all his life. The neighbourhood he emptied on canvas kept him.
