Utrillo, Maurice

Utrillo, Maurice (1883–1955). French painter, born in Paris, the illegitimate son of Suzanne Valadon. He took his surname from the Spanish painter Miguel Utrillo (1862–1934), who legally recognized him as his son in order to help him (his real father—according to some sources—was the Symbolist painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, who was 40 years older than Valadon). Utrillo began to paint in 1902 under pressure from his mother, who hoped it would remedy the alcoholism to which he had been a victim since boyhood (in 1934 the Tate Gallery wrongly stated in a catalogue that he had died of drink in that year, resulting in a libel suit, settled out of court). Valadon gave him his first lessons, but he was largely self-taught. He first exhibited his work publicly at the Salon d'Automne in 1909 and had his first one-man show in 1913, at the Galerie Blot in Paris. This received little attention, but in 1923 a joint exhibition with his mother at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris was a success, and thereafter he became prosperous and critically acclaimed. In 1937 he settled at Le Vésinet on the outskirts of Paris and in his final years gave as much time to religious devotions as to painting.

Utrillo was highly prolific, painting mainly street scenes in Montmartre, although he also did numerous views of churches and cathedrals (Church at St Hilaire, Tate Gallery, London, c. 1911). The period from about 1910 to 1916 is known as his ‘white period’ because of the predominance of milky or chalky tones in his pictures (he sometimes mixed plaster with his paint), and it is generally agreed that he did his best paintings during this time. They subtly convey solitude and emotional emptiness and have a delicate feeling for tone and atmosphere, even though he often worked from postcards rather than directly from the motif. His later work is livelier and more freely painted, but less touching. Utrillo's work is in many museums and (no doubt because of the deceptive simplicity of his paintings) he is among the most forged of modern artists. In 1976 the Greek-Cypriot dealer Paul Pétridès (1901–93), who had looked after Utrillo in his later years, was convicted of handling stolen paintings, and this cast doubt on his probity in authenticating works by the master.