Utrillo's decline: the limitations of an artist's output

La Port Saint–Martin c 1909

                                Les Toits a Montmagny 1906–7

I sometimes wonder if Utrillo is not perhaps one of the more interesting examples of serious decline in a twentieth century painter. This tentative idea of mine is based almost entirely on looking at reproductions—principally those in Alfred Werner’s Utrillo in the Abrams Library of Great Painters series. Taking Werner’s book as representative of the range of Utrillo’s work, I would say that two of his best works are those illustrated by colourplates 1 and 3. Plate 1, Les Toits a Montmagny 1906–7 (Centre Georges Pompidou), is in his early vermicular style, and is a bravura work—for Utrillo, I’d say—in which chrome oranges, red ochres (?), and emerald greens are embedded in a rich matrix of greys and blacks. And where, in one particular section between the centre and centre–left, Utrillo has almost submerged himself—and his subject—in a near–ecstatic “embroilment” with his pigments. But even more extraordinary than this is plate 3, Basilique de Saint–Denis c. 1908 (Kunsthaus, Zurich), a heavily empasted (or encrusted) work, in which the façade of the basilique is united with the street in a solid bonding of stone—and oil paint. This painting is jewel–like—a hymn to oil paint, as might be said—and if it were to be declared one of Utrillo’s greatest works I should not be surprised. Succeeding colourplates in Werner’s book illustrate the typical (generally known) Utrillo paintings of the period c. 1910–12, of which the Tate’s Place du Tertre is representative. (A work that neatly straddles, so to speak, the Basilique de Saint–Denis and the Place du Tertre is the Tate’s La Portre Saint–Martin c 1909, colourplate 7).

       

Street Scene, c. 1925

Holiday Fair (gouache) 1922

                                 

I am going at this point to contrast the previously given examples with a couple of absolute horrors from the 1920s—with some observations. They are: Holiday Fair (gouache) 1922, colourplate 40 (Joslyn Museum, Omaha), and Street Scene c. 1925, colourplate 42 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), both of which—without going into further descriptions—are populated by what became Utrillo’s stock figures: women in pairs, presenting “horse–rump” bottoms to the viewer! And if things had ended at that point, there would be little to say about such a sorry pass. But what I think makes Utrillo’s decline as a painter particularly interesting is that his decline is by no means uniform. So that if you look at Le Petit Palais 1922 (San Francisco Museum of Art), Utrillo’s old magic is still there (even though the boulevard gives you the impression that a particularly bloody massacre has just taken place). And if again you look at Rue a Stains 1926 (Minneapolis Institute of Arts), this painting has undeniable presence, and Utrillo’s old powers of 1910–12 seem to have returned. And finally, looking at the last reproduction in Werner’s book, Windmills of Montmartre 1949 (Collection of Edward M. Bawkin, Chicago), there is something quite deeply satisfying about the work (despite a certain crude impatience and the reappearance of a vestigial “horse–rump” woman). The colours, the abraded and textured walls, the sky hovering between sun and cloud—all these are vintage Utrillo.

Windmills of Monmartre, 1949

It may of course be that the last exampled painting was an absolute scraping of the barrel—the only time the clouds lifted for Utrillo in many years—in what I’ve no doubt was a pretty depressing life. Yet it strikes me as something quite remarkable that even this could happen after a life of dissipation attended by mental illness (or break–downs, at least). There also seems to me to be something of a triumph in it, given that in most cases when an artist “falls off”, the state is pretty permanent. So a question might be, how did he manage to hang on to his vision and to sufficient of his craft to realise it in such a tragic life?

I suppose that most students of early twentieth century painting neglect Utrillo yet he seems to me to be much more interesting than is generally supposed. Yet, from a quick check on Amazon.com, there seems to be no major work on Utrillo in print—no hint that I could find of an engaged Utrillo scholar.

How does it come about that artists cease to be (sufficiently) critical of their work and of themselves? Is their (often very limited) knowledge of subjects outside of the arts partly to blame for this—in giving them too narrow a perspective on things, and in not providing them with sufficient variety of examples drawn from other walks of life? How is it that artists do not become terminally bored of repeating themselves? How is it possible to lift brush to canvas only to rework the same tired old formulas (as they’ve inevitably become), in an unvarying range of colours, applied to last year’s—if not last decade’s—subject matter? (An example—no name, no pack drill—was at this year’s Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. One of the academician’s paintings were so dull that I simply didn’t recognise them the first time around. Yet this was a painter whose work I have in the past much admired—a man of whose intelligence and integrity I have no doubt. So I ask again (still rhetorically!), how does it happen?)

Picasso said to Brassai, “a painter shouldn’t have a second job. It’s a trap.” But for some the business of continuously producing (fresh) work over decades seems to be impossible—and then it’s painting that becomes the trap.

Afterword

Suzanne Valadon was herself a very gifted artist. The photograph below shows her with Maurice Utrillo, her son.

A few years ago — after I had written this piece — there was an exhibition in Paris of both Maurice Utrillo and Suzanne Valadon’s work. The quality of Utrillo’s early work came as no surprise, but I was astonished by Valadon’s work. Her drawings were superb — not a quality that her son seemed to possess. Tragically, both mother and son succumbed to dissipated life styles. I find the photos below almost unbearably sad . . . 

Note: If you have got this far, nearly a thousand people have viewed this blog, but no one has ever commented on it, so I am left wondering, “Why the particular interest in Utrillo?!”