La Distillerie à Saint Denis

Details

Pétridès IV, AG 104. With a photo expertise by Gilbert Pétridès, Paris, dated 13.1.1988. The expertise is numbered 19.519. Exhibitions: Cinquantième anniversaire de la mort de Maurice Utrillo, Takashimaya Museum,Tokyo et. al. 2005/06. Provenance: collection of J. Goldschmidt, Paris;private collection, New York;Sotheby’s, New York 12.11.1987, lot 255.

Description

• This work was painted one year after Utrillo made his breakthrough on the Parisian art scene
• Distilleries were then only permitted outside of large cities and often settled in suburbs like Saint-Denis
• Painted in Utrillo’s characteristic and mature style with typical figures
Since 1914, the distillation of alcohol had been banned in almost all major French cities, including Paris, because the distilleries, which were mainly illegal, frequently caught fire or were found to be selling unclean alcohol contaminated with methanol. One of the main reasons for the French authorities to issue this ban was probably also that the illegal distilleries did not pay taxes. The distilleries thus settled in the surrounding towns, such as the suburb of Saint-Denis, immediately north of Paris. At the time of industrialization, the city was an important location for the metal, heavy industry and electrical sectors. In this gouache, Utrillo’s typical figures are seen from the back, walking across a square. In the middle distance you can see the lettering of a distillery on the wall of a house, which tells us that we are in Saint-Denis. In the background, half hidden by trees, we see a line of facades and a factory chimney rising above the roofs on the right. In 1922, a year before this work was created, the art dealer Paul Guillaume organized an exhibition of 35 works by Utrillo, which marked his breakthrough into the Paris art scene. In the 1920s, Maurice Utrillo was a famous painter and exhibited for the first time in 1924 together with his mother Suzanne Valadon.