Maurice Utrillo

Galerie A. Pabow, San Francisco
Vandervelde Collection
Sam Salz, New York
Mr. & Mrs. Nathan L. Halpern, New York (acquired from the above in 1967)
Thence by descent (and sold: Christie’s, New York, November 4, 2004, lot 271)
Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Utrillo, 1921
Bern, Kunsthalle, Utrillo, 1949, no. 40
San Francisco, City Museum, Loan Exhibition, 1955

Adolphe Tabarant, Utrillo, Paris, 1926, illustrated p. 60
Georges Ribémont-Dessaignes, Utrillo, ou, L'enchanteur des rues, Paris, 1948, no. 7, illustrated in color p. 15
Paul Pétridès, L'Oeuvre complet de Maurice Utrillo, vol. I, Paris, 1959, no. 130, illustrated p. 179 
Jean Fabris & Cédric Paillier, L’Oeuvre complet de Maurice Utrillo, vol. I, Paris, 2009, no. 75, illustrated in color p. 132

This work was painted onto a piece of artist board which has subsequently been mounted on wood which is cradled. The cradle is still active and the method of support is effective. The painting is probably clean. There is no comparable to Utrillo who works in a very unique and eccentric fashion. One can see that the signature at lower left is undamaged and the paint layer throughout the architecture of the buildings seems to be undisturbed. It doesn't appear to be dirty, but neither has it been over cleaned. Under ultraviolet light examination, the sky is quite eccentric and reads strongly. If it has been restored in the past it is certainly not easily soluble and the roughness of the profiles of the tree in the upper right are not unusual for this artist. Above the two windows in the white wall into the center right there are a couple of clear restorations but otherwise the work is not recently restored. The above condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The present lot exemplifies the subtle painterly experiment that was Utrillo’s Periode Blanche (or "White Period," circa 1909-1912), the very pinnacle of his artistic career. While carefully balanced, compositions from this period are purposefully flattened, radically modern, their surfaces defined by delicate variations in tone. As Adolphe Tabarant describes, "At this time Utrillo uses a palette of many whites, but these never become chalky or dull. He surrounds them with soft greys, delicate pinks, deep blues, or else contrasts them with sonorous browns and blacks" (quoted in Utrillo, Paris, 1926, p.168).

While he presumably visited Chartres, a short journey southwest of Paris, Utrillo preferred not to work from nature from 1909 onward, and in fact he often preferred to use picture postcards as the basis of his compositions. It is worth noting that the artist has partially reimagined the scene to achieve his artistic ends, plastering over the exposed wooden beams of the original staircase with white impasto. Indeed Utrillo is known to have mixed real plaster and cement into his paints in order to achieve a desired effect, stating: "They're not in silver-white, the facades, are they? Not in zinc white...They are made of plaster" (quoted in D. Franck, Bohemian Paris, New York, 2001, p. 10). On the one hand Utrillo’s pioneering exploration of the monochrome recalls Titian's and Manet’s masterly application of black, but above all his works from this period reject the unrestrained palate of the Fauves, courageously paving the way for a new wave of Modernist experiments by figures as diverse as Lucio Fontana, Giorgio Morandi and Ben Nicholson.

 

Fig. 1 The artist in his studio