Utrillo, Composition, Éloge de Maurice Utrillo (after)
1956

About the Item

Lithograph on vélin du Marais paper. Inscription: unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition with centerfold, as issued. Notes: From the volume, Éloge de Maurice Utrillo, 1956. Published by Editions d'Art Manuel Bruker, Paris; printed by Mourlot Frères, Paris. Excerpted from the volume (translated from French), This book was completed and printed on June 5, 1956 on the presses of madame Jean-Gabriel Daragnès for typography and by the Mourlot Frères for lithographs. It was shot on Vidalon blanc. Two hundred numbered copies from 1 to 200, including the first twenty with a suite on vélin paper of the Marais. It has been attached to each copy a simulated fac of the Sonnet d'Utrillo: "Lyric art". In addition, twenty tests were drawn from the off-text and the double pages not put on the market. MAURICE UTRILLO (1883-1955) was a French painter of the School of Paris who specialized in cityscapes. From the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre to have been born there. Maurice Utrillo's life could not have been more bohemian. A romantic concept, la vie bohème was for many people who lived such an existence in Paris of the late-19th and early-20th century far less dazzling in reality. Born to the former circus acrobat turned artist's model and eventually avant-garde artist, Suzanne Valadon (she was only 18 at the time) Utrillo never knew who his father was. It was rumored that it could have been anyone from Puvis de Chavannes to Renoir to a young and little known painter named Boissy. When he was 21, Utrillo took up painting at the encouragement of his mother, who had learned to paint while posing for artists like Morisot, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Degas and had become a skillful artist in her own right. Eventually, the two shared a studio in Montmartre. At age 22, he sold his first painting and by 1909 he was exhibiting his work at the prestigious Salon d'Automne. By 1910, he had achieved considerable critical acclaim, having developed a style of landscape painting that combined features of Post-Impressionism and Cubism. His landscapes and cityscapes earned him lucrative sales and national notoriety, including the Cross of the Legion of Honor from the French government in 1928. Despite having been shunned by the French artistic establishment during much of his career, he is considered one of the pioneers of The School of Paris, the pre-World War I, modern artistic movement characterized by experimentation and pluralism. The quintessential struggling artist and also taking a cue from avant garde innovators like Picasso and Degas, Utrillo often used unusual if not everyday materials like cardboard in place of more expensive canvas to produce his paintings. Unlike his idols and mentors, however, Utrillo was virtually untrained and his greatest achievement must surely have been adapting his unrefined technique to successive avant garde styles - Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism - to attain considerable critical and financial success.

Creation Year:

1956

Dimensions:

Height: 13.18 in (33.48 cm)Width: 20.1 in (51.06 cm)

Medium:

Lithograph

Movement & Style:

Post-Impressionist

After:

Maurice Utrillo (1883 - 1955, French)

Period:

1950-1959