COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0000736
image_record_id
aahi0000736
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
Cityscape: the Street
Image Title:
full view
Work Dates (display):
1930
Work Dates type:
creation
Work Creator (display):
Maurice Utrillo (French, 1883-1955)
Work Creator gender:
male
work_creator_or_agent_gender
male
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator notes (display):
French painter, son of suzanne Valadon. He was entrusted to his grandmother while his mother posed as a model for such painters as Renoir and Puvis de Chavannes before discovering her own talent for drawing and painting. His father, the Spanish painter Miguel Utrillo (18621934), only admitted paternity eight years after Maurice's birth. Maurice Utrillo had no predisposition for art, but when he was 19 his mother took medical advice and urged him to adopt drawing and painting as a distraction from his need for alcohol. In search of a suitable subject, he went to the countryside around Montmagny, a village to the north of Paris, where, between the autumn of 1903 and the winter of 1904, he completed almost 150 paintings, sombre, heavily impasted landscapes, such as the Roofs of Montmagny (Paris, Pompidou). By 1906 the doctor felt that Utrillo could return to Montmartre. His pictures of the streets and suburbs were painted with a less heavy impasto and with lighter tones. He was attracted by ordinary houses, as in the Rue du Mont-Cenis (see fig.) and Berlioz's House (both 1914; Paris, Mus. Orangerie), and suburban churches, for instance the Church of Villiers-le-Bel (1909; priv. col., see Pétridès, i, p. 129). These themes, associated with painters such as Daumier, Pissarro and Caillebotte, became Utrillo's chief source of inspiration, but he soon turned to a more ambitious subject, cathedrals. He was concerned with the development of an ordered composition and a flattened treatment of space that suggested the artificial appearance of a theatre set, as in Notre-Dame (1909; Paris, Mus. Orangerie). Particularly during World War I he also found that such subjects allowed him to project strong emotions, as in Rheims Cathedral in Flames (1914; Basle, priv. col., see Pétridès, i, p. 67). From 1909 until c. 1914 Utrillo mixed glue, plaster or cement with his paint to obtain the whites for which he became famous. His paintings of buildings show a striking contrast between the boldness of his colour and his painstaking draughtsmanship (traces of his having used a ruler and compass are often noticeable). Carried to their logical conclusion, these experiments led him to produce austere monochrome paintings in beige and grey. His deteriorating health and social awkwardness led him gradually to withdraw from the streets of Montmartre into the relative safety of nursing homes. Here he developed the habit of painting from postcards (see Warnod, pp. 20, 26). His mother and stepfather, the painter André Utter (18861948), selected cards reproducing his favourite views of La Butte Montmartre. He worked from these either in their communal studio at 12 Rue Cortot, in the restaurant La Belle Gabrièle or in a bedroom above the Père Gay bistro. He exacted his revenge on the locals who had made his life difficult with their criticisms and jokes by depicting them in his paintings in rear view, as heavily outlined clumsy shapes and stereotyped silhouettes. There is no hint in Utrillo's work of the vicissitudes of his life: spells in homes; a move to the Château de Saint-Bernard in the Saône in 1923 with his mother and stepfather; his marriage to Lucie Pauwels (née Valore) in 1936 and consequent establishment in an orderly bourgeois existence at Vésinet; and various visits to the country. His late paintings, such as Old House at Aubusson (gouache on paper, 1935; Lausanne, Pal. Rumine) and Village Street under Snow (c. 1945; Albi, Mus. Toulouse-Lautrec), are characterized by rich colours and strong black contours and are almost entirely on landscape themes. From 1937 he was looked after by his friend and dealer Paul Pétridès at the request of his family. In spite of his wretched life he maintained a prolific output with a deep vein of poetic melancholy. After his death his critical reputation declined, although he remained popular with collectors and the public. (Grove Art Online Accessed 2007-10-22)
Work Worktype:
oil paintings
work_type
oil paintings
Work Worktype
false
Work Worktype:
paintings (visual works)
work_type
paintings (visual works)
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
paintings
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
paintings
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Work Material and Technique (display):
oil on canvas
Work Measurements (display):
60 cm (H) x 73 cm (W)
Work Inscription (display):
signed
Work Location (Repository or Site) name:
n 80044910
Work Location (Repository or Site) role:
repository
Work Location (Geographic) name:
Budapest, Hungary
Image Rights (display):
© Ronald Wiedenhoeft. Licensed for educational use via Scholars Resource: Saskia, Ltd.
Image Rights license agreement:
SASKIA, LTD.: WHO CAN USE THIS SOFTWARE: (a) Licensee, including faculty, staff and currently enrolled students may use the Licensed Software to display and or print the corresponding graphic images without limitation for teaching and research purposes at the defined Sites, or at remote locations having electronic access to your Site(s). (b) This license include permission to use the Licensed Software on a multi-user network at the defined Site, and to permit remote access to a computer/server located at your Site. Simultaneous display in multiple locations at or connected to the Site is also permitted. (c) Licensee agrees to employ reasonable security measures designed to limit access to your faculty, staff and currently enrolled students. PROHIBITED USES AND LIMITATIONS: (a) Saskia hereby reserves all rights not expressly granted herein. (b) the License Software may not be used for preparaiton of any publication, scholarly or otherwise; or for any purpose other than teaching or research. Publication of an image from the Licensed Software requires a separate license from Saskia. (c) Licensee agrees not to resell, lease, transfer, sub-license or otherwise distribute a copy of the Licensed Software, or any image taken from the Licensed Software, in whole or in part. (d) Licensee also agrees not to modify, corrupt or alter any digital image graphic content or "digital watermark" or the like in the software provided by Saskia under this Agreement. (e) Licensee agrees not to remove, alter, cover or distort Saskia's copyright notice, trademark, or other proprietary rights notice placed by Saskia in the Licensed Software itself, or in the associated packaging, media or documentation. (f) And Licensee agrees to notify users of the Licensed Software, in writing or by sign-on screen display, of their obligations under this Agreement and solicit their cooperation and compliance with such obligations.
Terms of Agreement and Conditions of Use:
YOU AGREE: Luna Imaging's Insight Software and the digital image collection associated with it (the Software) are being provided by the University of Colorado under the following license. By obtaining, using, and/or copying this work, you (the Licensee) agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with the following terms and conditions. 1. The Software contains the University of Colorado's Department of Art and Art History's implementation of a digital image collection; 2. Any images obtained through use of the Software will be used only for non-profit, educational purposes; 3. The use of images obtained through the software will only be used while the Licensee is either: a) an employee of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver, or b) an enrolled student at the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver; 4. When the Licensee is no longer an employee or student of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or Community College of Denver, either by an action of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or the Community College of Denver or due to actions of the Licensee, the licensee will cease to use any images exported from the Department of Art and Art History's digital image collection; 5. The Licensee agrees to indemnify the University for claims and liability arising out of the use of the Software or for any violations of this license; 6. THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SUPPLIES THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
CU Copyright Statement:
The contents of the University of Colorado Digital Library are available for your use in research, teaching, and private study. Some of these items are protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) and some items may have additional restrictions. If you use the items in this collection, make sure you abide by any restrictions stated in the descriptive data window. The nature of these collections often makes it difficult to determine the copyright status of an item. We have made every effort to provide information about copyright owners and other restrictions in the descriptive data window. Ultimately, however, it is your responsibility to use the item according to the terms governing its use. If you are a copyright holder and the information is either not listed or listed incorrectly, please let us know so that we can update the information on our site.
Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Center
Collection info and contact:
For information about this collection, see