MAURICE UTRILLO (1883-1955) Lot n° 18

MAURICE UTRILLO (1883-1955) La maison de chaume, à Montmartre, vers 1918 Oil on Isorel pasted on panel Signed lower right Oil on masonite laid on panel; signed lower right 37 X 49,5 CM - 15 X 20 1/8 IN A certificate from the Galerie Paul Pétridès, dated April 11, 1962, will be given to the buyer The Maurice Utrillo Association has confirmed the authenticity of this work A certificate from the Maurice Utrillo Association will be given to the buyer PROVENANCE Collection Léon Charbonnier, Lyon Collection Julien Charbonnier, Lyon Besch Cannes, 12 November 2011, lot 157 Acquired at this sale by the present owner Private collection, France BIBLIOGRAPHY Paul Pétridès, L'œuvre complet de Maurice Utrillo, Paris, 1959-1974, Tome II, plate n° 734, p. 222 RELATED WORKS Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955), rue Saint Vincent and Henri IV's house in Montmartre, ca. 1912, oil on canvas, 61 x 50 CM, private collection Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955), Henri IV's thatched cottage, rue Saint-Vincent in Montmartre, 1913, oil on canvas, 79 x 58 CM If Montmartre were to retain only one of its contenders, it would be Maurice Utrillo. The child of the Butte never ceased to admire his neighborhood, its inhabitants and its buildings, like Monet, admiring his cathedral in Rouen, which changes according to the time of day. Focusing on the treatment of color, Utrillo makes the most of his environment and paints a portrait, admittedly melancholy, but faithful, of the Parisian streets. Our composition, The Thatched House in Montmartre, painted around 1918, is a good example. A true witness to urban evolution, Utrillo leaves a precious cartography as his legacy. Here, the house known as Henri IV's is represented, just as Utrillo painted Berlioz's house in 1914. Many changes took place in the neighborhood during the 19th century, starting with its annexation by the city of Paris in 1860. Despite this event, Montmartre retained its reclusive village character, of which Utrillo knew every corner and anecdote. In particular, at the corner of rue Saint-Vincent and rue du Mont-Cenis, a simple house in appearance was the former residence of the composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) from 1834 to 1837, but above all the studio of the painter Georges Braque (1882-1963) in 1911. These houses and streets are therefore a symbol of Montmartre's bohemian community. The atmosphere retranscribed, so particular and proper to Utrillo, works like a Proust's madeleine, and as the painter's first dealer, Louis Libaude, notes, "Maurice Utrillo evokes, for any sensitive Parisian, the nostalgia of the native city, its sick sky, its resigned houses. [...] His landscapes are often streets, seen in a row and whose distance is lost in small details. Sometimes he simply shows us a wall, some trees and the sky. It is enough to be a poet and a painter". "quoted in G. Coquiot, Cubists, futurists, pastists: essay, on the young painting and the young sculpture, Paris, 1914, p. 191.