MAURICE UTRILLO

(1883-1955)

Ferme-Laiterie de la Voie-Dieu, Bourganeuf (Creuse)

Footnotes

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by the Comité Utrillo-Valadon.

Provenance
Antonin Ponchon & Cie., Lyon.
Galerie Drouant-David, Paris; their sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, January 25, 1956, lot 85.
Sale: Sotheby & Co., London, July 8, 1971, lot 55.
G. Borni Collection (acquired at the above sale).
Louis Deblasi-Lachal Collection, Paris.
Wally Findlay Galleries Inc., New York, no. 49467 (acquired from the above in May 1973).
Robert Allmand Collection, Boca Raton (acquired from the above in February 1978).
Elise Reeder Olton Collection, Boca Raton (by descent from the above).
Private collection, Florida (bequeathed from the above circa 2013).
Thence by descent to the present owner.

Literature
A. Basler, Maurice Utrillo, Paris, 1931 (illustrated p. 67).
P. Pétridès, L'oeuvre complet de Maurice Utrillo, vol. IV, Paris, 1966, no. AG 202 (illustrated; incorrectly dated 1928).
Exh. cat., Maurice Utrillo 1883 - 1955, New York, 1978.



"Gloomy suburbs, empty avenues, small peasant churches, everything in the world that is simple and banal, he transfigured instinctively, seeing it all through the eyes of a child. The humblest chapel became as majestic as a basilica. He needed only a few clouds strewn about a pale sky to convey the feeling of indescribable lightness. The least stone, soiled and cracked, became fascinating under his brush"
- F. Hazen quoted in Exh. cat., Maurice Utrillo 1883 - 1955, New York, 1978, p. 9.


Maurice Utrillo paints a snapshot in time in Ferme-Laiterie de la Voie-Dieu, Bourganeuf (Creuse). The scene consists of five figures, dairy and cheese farmers, going about their daily chores on La Voie-Dieu, an overgrown street situated in the small commune of Bourganeuf. Built in the 12th century by the knights of St. John, the medieval village of Bourganeuf boasts timeless architecture – stone and mortar farmhouses framed with irregular stones and red-tiled roofs line the streets. In the present work, high white walls are seen in the foreground, and in the background, a hillside with houses and trees and autumn foliage under a bright blue sky juxtaposed with white clouds. Utrillo visited Bourganeuf a handful of times, returning to La Voie-Dieu to paint the town's inhabitants about their simple and ordinary routines.

Utrillo implements his celebrated manière blanche palette in Ferme-Laiterie de la Voie-Dieu, Bourganeuf (Creuse) - a consistence of various whites, soft greys, creamy yellows, and delicate pinks contrasted against deep blues, greens and reds. Framed by a diagonal pane of the artist's signature white, the present lot is a superior example of the artist's masterful ability to document architectural detail in unmistakable stylization. As Frank Elgar describes in the Dictionary of Modern Painting:

"Utrillo is a constructor: his buildings are firmly set in the ground; his cathedrals rise boldly in the sky. He is an architect; his quays, streets, boulevards stretch out toward the horizon obeying an infallible perspective. He is a colorist; he has an exact notion of the relations between tones, values, atmosphere. His milky whites, singing grays, pale blues, tender greens, glowing reds, velvety blacks defy analysis. For the charming awkwardness of his first canvases, he substituted by dint of work a faultless technique and an ease that did not stifle his blissful naïveté" (ibid., p. 12).

Utrillo was born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris to the fiery and independent Suzanne Valadon, an artist in her own right and also model to artists such as Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. With his mother distracted elsewhere, Utrillo grew up shy and reserved, ultimately turning to alcohol to comfort his tumultuous moods. A psychiatric doctor suggested that Valadon teach Utrillo painting as a means of therapy. With the encouragement of his mother and his admiration for Impressionist artists Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro, Utrillo embarked on his career as an artist. He turned to the streets of Montmartre - the curvy roads, lively nightlife, and white-domed Sacré-Coeur - as his preferred subject matter. Suffering from bouts of madness, Utrillo was referred to as one of the les maudits (the cursed), alongside his friend Amedeo Modigliani.

When Utrillo's addiction escalated in 1923, Utrillo and Valadon moved away from the temptations of Montmartre to the quiet château de St Bernard near Lyon. Executed on a sunny day in the fall of 1927, Ferme-Laiterie de la Voie-Dieu, Bourganeuf (Creuse) surpasses any traditional limitation of painting to deliver the sensual qualities of la Voie-Dieu - the isolated figures and sparse streets evoke the anxieties that Utrillo himself suffered. His poetic artistic touch and unique ability to embed ordinary scenes with mystique and wonder is described by Carlos Santini, "Utrillo has no need of any special figurative setting...cobblestones, rows of houses, cathedral towers, pavements, fences...all take their place in his work with their own peculiar expressiveness. These and many other objects...suggest the passage of time, the waning of life, the desperate melancholy of certain times and seasons" (Carlo Santini, Modern Landscape Painting, London, 1972, p. 53).

Ferme-Laiterie de la Voie-Dieu, Bourganeuf (Creuse) is signed 'Maurice Utrillo, V. octobre 1927,' a testament to the artist's love for his mother. Hailing from the Lyon gallery of Antonin Ponchon, a dealer and artist who was a close friend to both Utrillo and Valadon, the painting boasts rich provenance. Acquired by Wally Findlay Galleries in New York in 1973, it entered the collection of Floridian socialite Elise Reeder Olton in 1978 where it has thence remained in private hands.