Portrait of Maurice Utrillo, 1921 by Suzanne Valadon (Utrillo’s mother)
Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955) has an incredibly interesting history. His serene paintings of Montmartre, where he was born and lived, belie the turbulence of his life.
Utrillo’s mother was artist Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938), whose own story is also remarkable. Valadon was the daughter of a poor, single mother. She began working at the age of 11. At age 15 she got a job with the circus, as a trapeze artist, but that career was cut short when she fell from a trapeze and injured her back.
Valadon initially taught herself to draw and earned a living modeling for artists like Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It was in the studios of the artists she worked for that she learned to perfect her own talent as a painter. Edgar Degas became her mentor and patron. They remained friends until his death in 1917.
Valadon gave birth to her son, Maurice, when she was 18. The identity of his father is unclear, but the story, as told by artist Diego Rivera, goes like this: "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!’”
While his mother continued to model and paint, Maurice Utrillo was cared for by his grandmother. He was often truant from school, drank excessively, suffered from depression and was repeatedly placed in mental institutions.
When he was 21, his mother encouraged him to paint. As we know, Utrillo was extremely talented. He painted his surroundings in Montmartre so beautifully, that his works gained international acclaim and he was awarded the Cross of the Légion d’honneu by the French government.
Utrillo married artist Lucie Valor when he was fifty-two. The couple lived outside of Paris, where Utrillo continued to paint, although his health began to decline.
It is believed that Utrillo produced thousands of paintings in his lifetime. Many of his works can be found in major museums throughout the world. A traveling exhibit Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel, was organized by the Barnes Foundation last year, more than eighty years after her death.