Montmartre vécu par Utrillo

First edition, one of 240 numbered copies on vélin d'Arches, with 22 color lithographs after gouaches, including 12 full-page plates by Maurice Utrillo, printed in the ateliers of Fernand Mourlot and Lucien Détruit.
White aniline calf with gilt titanium joints, ink-painted boards in green and grey, decoration continuing edge-to-edge on the liners, loose endpapers on papier japon dyed with Kakishibu by the binder, title lengthwise on the spine, decorated chemise titled on the spine and matching custom slipcase. Original wrappers and spine preserved.

Binding signed by Julie Auzillon, gilt title by Geneviève Quarré de Boiry and gilt top edge by Jean-Luc Bongrain (2022).
This book presenting every style of the famed artist from Montmartre, was published on the occasion of his exhibition in 1947 at the Paul Pétridès gallery.
This book, presenting every aesthetic period of Montmartre artist Maurice Utrillo was published for his 1947 exhibition at the Paul Pétridès gallery.
Mounted at the front of the book, an autograph sonnet entitled "L'Art pictural" signed by Maurice Utrillo and addressed to Francisque Poulbot; two quatrains and two tercets written in black ink on lined paper. Before the poem Utrillo specified: "Sonnet par Maurice, Utrillo, V, < dédié à son ami et confrère < Georges Kars." [Sonnet by Maurice Utrillo, V, < dedicated to his friend and colleague < Georges Kars] Signed and inscribed by Utrillo a second time at the top of the sheet: "Amicalement à Francisque Poulbot".
A few stains to the margins not affecting reading. The sonnet was published in ART, vol. 2 (October 1934-July 1935, p. 9).
This beautiful poem, a true poetic manifest of pictorial independence twice signed by Utrillo is dedicated to cartoonist Francisque Poulbot, a key figure in Montmartre society. It brings together iconic figures of the “Butte”, famous for their bohemian life and eternal drunkenness: Utrillo, Poulbot and Georges Kars, a Cubist artist of Czech origin living in Montmartre whose paintings are celebrated by Utrillo in the sonnet.
Utrillo wrote this manuscript in 1928 to Francisque Poulbot, former classmate of the Lycée Rollin who had become a renowned draughtsman, goguettier and founder of the République de Montmartre. Poulbot sketched the painter many times in his beloved Montmartre streets, brush in one hand and bottle in the other, the silhouette of the Sacré-Coeur church looming in the distance. Utrillo and Poulbot both stayed at some point in their lives at 12 rue Cortot where the Musée de Montmartre is now located. The year he wrote this poem, Utrillo painted a superb gouache of Poulbot's house on avenue Junot.
Although known for his paintings, Utrillo also found in poetry a form of redemption for his bouts of alcohol-induced hysteria. Considered by his friends as a "builder of sonnets or dithyrambic quatrains" his verses were praised by famed critic Félix Fénéon. Utrillo also used poetry to celebrate his Montmartre artist neighbors. He wrote this poem in honor of Czech painter Georges Kars thanking him for a striking portrait of him exhibited at the Berthe Weill gallery:
« […] Qu'il me soit donc ici permis en compagnon
Sincère et noble et pur, en non troubleur en rond,
Sur cet Art pictural, d'émettre un trait austère,
Georges Kars, en ce lieu de digne réunion,
Rue Laffitte, chez Weill, de l'art porte-fanion,
S'affirme en ses tableaux inventif et sincère... »
Kars had settled in Montmartre in 1908 and spent many summers in Cadaquès with his wife, Utrillo and his mother, Suzanne Valadon. In these verses dedicated to the lines of "his friend and colleague" Kars, Utrillo celebrates the independence and aesthetic personality emancipated from any artistic movement, which also characterized Utrillo's own style. Utrillo being a self-taught painter, he states his difference from academism and even the avant-gardes of yesteryear, citing the Impressionist revolution embodied by the Cormon studio of Van Gogh and Camille Corot, as well as Cubism and Futurism popularized in the late 1920s:
« Lors ! en France, il est dit que tout peintre en renom
Digne des traditions, ou Corot ou Cormon,
Ou de tout autre esprit quelque peu réfractaire,
CUBISTE OU FUTURISTE IL S'IMPOSE ET S'AVERE...
AUX GENS DE PUR SNOBISME et adulant son nom,
Par de vains procédés il fausse le bon ton,
S'inspirant et des goûts et du Tendre et Sévère
Et tous fats pré[ju]gés chers aux sots, sur la terre […] »
This monumental retrospective book of the "painter of Montmartre" exceptionally contains manuscript verses written in his hand. Also accompanied by texts by Francis Carco, the book concentrates the artistic soul of this iconic Parisian neighborhood perched on the very top of the city, which became a cradle for many timeless literary and artistic creations. The copy is set in a sumptuous art binding signed by one of the rising stars of contemporary French bookbinding.