*Maurice UTRILLO (1883-1955) [FRANCE] - Lot 29

*Maurice UTRILLO (1883-1955) [FRANCE] July 14th in Montmartre, circa 1948 Oil on cardboard. Signed lower right. Located lower left: Montmartre. 23.5 x 31 cm Provenance : M. Palanzo, Buenos Aires Exhibitions : Tokyo, Mémorial Seiji Togo Musée d'Art Sompo, Maurice Utrillo, April 17 - July 4, 2010, no. 87, p. 133 (reproduced in color) then in Niigata, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, July 10 - August 25, 2010; Kyoto, Kyoto Museum, September 9 - October 17, 2010; Aichi, Toyohashi City Museum of Art and History, October 22 - December 5, 2010. Bibliography : Paul Pétrides, L'oeuvre complet de Maurice Utrillo, Paris, 1969, tome III, no. 2287 (reproduced). This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by Jean Fabris, dated August 30, 2010 in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, which states that this work will be included in the forthcoming Utrillo Catalogue raisonné currently in preparation. Archive no. 5042. Utrillo 14 juillet à Montmartre, circa 1948 Throughout his career, Maurice Utrillo's art underwent a constant evolution. The painter varied his brushwork, choice of colors and precision of drawing. The Blanche period, from 1910 to 1914, saw the triumph of a dominant plaster white, that of the facades of Parisian houses, punctuated by a palette of reduced, matt and muted colors. During the twenties, his drawing became freer: tree branches waved, foliage fluttered, his façades became less and less geometric and his female passers-by acquired a comic corpulence. July 14th in Montmartre Our painting is a marvellous example of the pictorial style of the 1940s, which he continued until his death: the brushstrokes become frankly free and virgulate. The colors are vivid, paste-like and layered in several shades. And the brushstroke becomes the drawing itself. Montmartre and its little houses, the Sacré-Coeur, the factory chimney are treated here in intense reds, oranges, greens and blues. The many tricolored flags flying (and sometimes found at the top of his "Moulin de la Galette") accentuate the luminous intensity: in this blaze, the colors seem to reach their melting point.