Maurice Utrillo

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris
Private Collection, France (and sold: Sotheby's, London, March 29, 1988, lot 21)
The Maspro Art Museum, Japan (acquired at the above sale and sold: Christie's, New York, May 5, 2005, lot 387)
Acquired at the above sale

Mitaka, Musée Municipal des Beaux-Arts; Chiba, Musée Municipal des Beaux-Arts; Asahikawa, Musée Préfectoral des Beaux-Arts d'Hokkaido & Fukuoka, Fukuoka Musée Préfectural, Maurice Utrillo, le Montmartre du rêve et de la poésie, 2007, no. 6, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Pinacothèque de Paris, Valadon, Utrillo: au tournant du siècle à Montmartre: de l'impressionnisme à l'École de Paris, 2009, no. 28, illustrated in the catalogue

Adolphe Tabarant, Utrillo, Paris, 1926, illustrated p. 42
Paul Pétridès, L'Oeuvre complet de Maurice Utrillo, vol. I, Paris, 1959, no. 153, illustrated p. 205

Executed on board laid down on cradled panel. There is a rich and textured layer of impasto. Artist pinhole at lower left and upper right corners. Under UV light one small vertical line of inpainting is visible at the bottom of the trunk of the tree and a spot of fluorescence is visible in the darkest green pigment of the window at center right, this may be original. Otherwise fine. This work is in very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Utrillo painted Place des Abbesses while living in Montmartre circa 1910, during his so called “white period,” the most desirable and highly regarded epoch of his oeuvre. His focus on such solitary street scenes underscored a certain modesty when compared to the imagery of his avant-garde contemporaries, yet, and perhaps as a direct result, they quickly attracted the attention of esteemed writers and collectors. Writer-turned-art-dealer Louis Libaude discovered Utrillo during these early years and organized the artist’s first exhibition at the Galerie Eugène Blot in 1913.

Libaude wrote in the introduction to the exhibition catalogue, “Maurice Utrillo is the painter of Montmartre. Since Lépine, I believe no other artist has been able to render with such acute sensitivity the charm of this little provincial town, isolated on the summit of Paris. Utrillo excels in painting the cracked walls of the old houses. The smallest miserable façade takes on in his paintings an extraordinary intensity of color and life... He is also a painter of the suburbs... He loves the morose steeples of old churches, the deserted streets of the gloomy suburbs… Maurice Utrillo evokes, above all, for every sensitive Parisian the nostalgia of his native city, its sickly sky, its resigned houses” (quoted in Maurice Utrillo (exhibition catalogue), Carnegie Institute Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 1963, n.p.).