Maurice Utrillo Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Maurice Utrillo, born in Paris in 1883 and died in Dax, Landes, in 1955, was a famous painter, illegitimate son of the painter Suzanne Valadon, who gave him his first painting lessons. Utrillo began his artistic activity in 1902, dedicating himself passionately to painting, but alternating periods of creative happiness with long stays in hospitals and hospitalizations due to alcoholism. Read the full biography

Maurice Utrillo Biography

Maurice Utrillo, born in Paris in 1883 and died in Dax, Landes, in 1955, was a famous painter, illegitimate son of the painter Suzanne Valadon, who gave him his first painting lessons. Utrillo began his artistic activity in 1902, dedicating himself passionately to painting, but alternating periods of creative happiness with long stays in hospitals and hospitalizations due to alcoholism. Essentially self-taught, he immediately obtained highly original results in the views of Montmagny, Montmartre and the surroundings of Paris, with paintings characterized by vibrant and spontaneous sensitivity and dense material mixtures. In the white period (1908-14), he stood out for his use of zinc white (“Le lapin agile”, 1910, Paris, Musée national d'art moderni). After 1918, his more chromatically bright and contrasting views acquired a subtle melancholic streak ("Sacré Coeur", 1934, Indianapolis, Museum of art). Many of his works are preserved in the Musée national d'art moderni in Paris.