MAURICE UTRILLO (1883-1955) was the extremely disturbed son of another famous and even more talented artist, Suzanne Valadon. Valadon, a beautiful but impoverished woman, made her living by displaying her feminine charms – as an artists' model among other things. Having been painted by some of the most famous of the artists who called themselves "the Independents", but whom we know as the Impressionists (from their detractors' contemptuous label for them), she persuaded Renoir to teach her to paint. From that time onward she made a modest living from her art in combination with her other occupations.
It is not entirely clear who among Suzanne's circle was Maurice's father. It may well have been an insurance clerk named Boissy. We may assume that it was not Toulouse-Lautrec, though he was her formal lover at the time, because he could have supported the boy and given him his (noble) name. In any event, Suzanne persuaded the other quasi-noble among her impecunious and-or socially outcast lovers to give the boy his family name. Michael y Molins Utrillo, the scion of minor Spanish nobility, was just a ne'er-do-well journalist in Paris who never supported the boy nor is there any reason to think he really was Maurice's father.
Ironically it was the demented Maurice who made a fortune as a artist. A very difficult child, he became an alcoholic as his grandmother would give him a peasant broth containing wine which seemed to calm him. After his discharge from the first of many confinements in a sanitarium, he sat at home for hours just staring out a window. In desperation his mother decided to teach him to paint. For 50 years he produced an endless series of Paris street scenes (mstly unpeopled) which proved enormously popular and profitable, making him (and his family) wealthy.
This was a good thing for what would otherwise have happened to him is not to be contemplated. As he reached such maturity as he ever reached he pursued his alcoholism by sneaking out of the house to get drunk and pick fights in bars. This was the least of his peculiarities, however. He wandered the streets of the Montmarte section of Paris where he and his mother lived. Sometimes he would find something he liked and paint it. But sometimes he would cause horrendous scenes. Often upon encountering unaccompanied women on the streets his body would begin shaking, and he would shriek insults and incoherent noises. Sometimes he would expose himself screaming "I paint with THIS!"
Public complaints to the police made it impossible for such a situation to continue, but his wealth allowed a more or less workable compromise. He could paint scenes he could see from the windows of his mansion, in which he was at all times supervised by his mother or others. He was only allowed out if he was accompanied by one or more keepers who would hustle him back home if another incident threatened. (Failure to adequately control him would result in temporary commitment to an institution which would preclude or substantially hinder his highly popular street paintings.) Three years before Suzanne's death Maurice was "married" to a widow who took over his supervision.
A few months before his death in 1955 the Musee Nationale de l'Art Moderne held an exhibition of his paintings. There was no question of his attending a formal session with the public present, so he was invited to a pre-opening private showing. He walked through room after room of his paintings without comment or visible display of emotion until he reached the area displaying his "white period." Suddenly he burst into tears sobbing, "Despite everything, how beautiful it was."
