André Utter

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André Utter, portrayed by Georges Kars in 1924

André Utter (born March 20, 1886 in Paris ; died February 7, 1948 there ) was a French painter. He became known as the model , muse, and husband of Suzanne Valadon .

Life

Suzanne Valadon: Adam et Eve , 1909
Suzanne Valadon: Portrait de famille , 1912
The atelier at 12 rue Cortot

André Utter's father was a plumber , and Utter is said to have been an electrician before he decided to become a self-taught painter of Parisian bohemianism . His friend Maurice Utrillo introduced the twenty year old to his mother Suzanne Valadon in 1906. He became her lover and was her first male model to pose naked for her from 1909 to 1914.

From 1909 they lived with Utrillo, who was then addicted to alcohol, at 12 Rue Cortot on Montmartre and shared a studio. They were sometimes called trinité maudite (roughly translated: damned trinity ). Utter took care of the everyday things and admired the painter Valadon. She introduced him to artistic circles. She felt inspired in her artistic creativity by the love for her boyfriend, who was 21 years younger than her. At the beginning of the twentieth century, this sexual relationship between the painter and male model was an exception and represented a reversal of the traditional gender hierarchy. Valadon also broke with conventions in her paintings by Utter. At a time when female artists who worked by nude were met with resentment, she and her lover painted herself as Adam and Eve, walking serenely through a summer landscape. She emphasized the equality of the partners through a similar presentation. However, in order to be able to exhibit the painting in the Salon des Indépendants in 1920 , she had to paint over his genitals. Her painting Le lancement du filet from 1914, which the three of them traveled to Corsica , is a study of the naked male body, which Utter shows in three positions. It is the first painting by an artist that was dedicated to a male nude in all its beauty and erotic charisma. Their relationship with the three is illustrated in her painting entitled Portrait de Famille from 1912. In it, Utter appears in a suit, shirt and tie in the uniform of civic respect on the far left, a symbolic position that meant authority and the role of a family man, however turned away from her and her son in the center. In the background on the right you can see Valadon's grandmother Madeleine. Valadon also acted as model for Utter several times. In 1913 he portrayed her as a standing nude in an expressive oil painting entitled Suzanne Valadon se coiffant . It was part of the collection of the Petit Palais Museum in Geneva, which closed in 1998 .

At his urging, Utter and Valadon married shortly before he was drafted into World War I. When he returned in 1918, he took over the career management of the three artists, and later also responsibility for finances. Utter drew and painted landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits in the style of a moderate expressionism , which, like Valadon, tended towards naturalism . He illustrated the book Théâtre à lire by Oscar Wilde and also worked as a painter for theater sets. Between 1915 and 1922 and 1925 and 1932 there were several joint exhibitions in Paris, including at Berthe Weill's gallery , which Valadon and Utrillo signed, but not Utter. He had a solo exhibition in Geneva in 1932, but was unsuccessful as a painter. The good reviews for Valadon and Utrillo are believed to have sparked arguments over his jealousy, especially after Utter started drinking. In 1923, he and Suzanne Valadon bought a château in Saint-Bernard , where they spent time together. There he stayed increasingly longer than in Paris and finally settled there. The last two paintings by Valadon that he was the model for are dated 1932. One is a study of his head, on the other he is sitting with a thoughtful expression as a country gentleman with two dogs in an autumn landscape.

In 1934 they got divorced. It remained part of her life until she died four years later. Utter suffered another loss when Utrillo married in 1935 and had to give up its management. In 1943 he returned from Saint-Bernard to Paris in the Rue Cortot, where he lived until his death in 1948. He is buried next to Suzanne Valadon in the Saint-Ouen cemetery near Paris . Works by André Utter can be found in the archive of the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris , along with unpublished notes and other documents .

The Musée de Montmartre has been housed in the house at 12 Rue Cortot since 1960 . Valadon, Utrillo and Utter's atelier was restored in 2014.

Exhibitions

  • 2008: Utrillo, Valadon, Utter. 12 rue Cortot. Un atelier, trois artistes . Utrillo-Valadon Museum , Sannois
  • 2011/2012: Valadon, Utrillo, Utter: la trinité maudite entre Paris et Saint-Bernard, 1909–1939 . Paintings, drawings, photographs. Musée Paul-Dini de Villefranche-sur-Saône
  • 2015/2016: Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo, André Utter: 12, rue Cortot . Musee de Montmartre , Paris
    • Exhibition catalog: Jeanine Warnod, Saskia Ooms: Valadon, Utrillo & Utter à l'atelier de la rue Cortot: 1912–1926 , Somogy éditions d'art, Paris 2015, ISBN 978-2-7572-0952-3

literature

  • Alicia Craig Faxon: UTTER, André , in: Jill Berk Jiminez (Ed.): Dictionary of Artists' Models , Routledge , 2000, ISBN 978-1-57958-233-3 , pp. 529-531 (English)

Web links

Commons : André Utter  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Utter, André. Catalog Bibliothèque nationale de France
  2. ↑ a b Alicia Craig Faxon: UTTER, André , in: Jill Berk Jiminez (Ed.): Dictionary of Artists' Models , Routledge , 2000, ISBN 978-1-57958-233-3 , p. 530
  3. ↑ Robert Beach Board : La trinité maudite (Suzanne Valadon André Utter Maurice Utrillo..) , Paris 1952
  4. ↑ Valeska Doll: Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938) Identity Construction in the Field of Tension Between Artist Myths and Femininity Stereotypes , Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-8316-0036-6 , p. 106
  5. ↑ Valeska Doll: Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938) Identity Construction in the Field of Tension Between Artistic Myths and Stereotypes of Femininity , Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-8316-0036-6 , The Adam and Eve picture from 1909, p. 196
  6. ↑ Valeska Doll: Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938) Identity Construction in the Field of Tension Between Artistic Myths and Stereotypes of Femininity , Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-8316-0036-6 , p. 203
  7. ↑ Valeska Doll: Suzanne Valadon (1865–1938) Identity Construction in the Field of Tension Between Artist Myths and Femininity Stereotypes , Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-8316-0036-6 , p. 206
  8. ↑ Suzanne Valadon: Le lancement du filet (1914). Reproduction on the Center Pompidou website (accessed August 1, 2017)
  9. ↑ Extrait du catalog Collection art Moderne - La collection du Center Pompidou, Musée national d'art moderne, sous la direction de Brigitte Leal, Paris, Center Pompidou, 2007 (accessed August 1, 2017)
  10. ↑ a b c d Alicia Craig Faxon: UTTER, André , in: Jill Berk Jiminez (Ed.): Dictionary of Artists' Models , Routledge , 2000, ISBN 978-1-57958-233-3 , p. 531
  11. ^ Jill Berk Jiminez (ed.): Dictionary of Artists' Models , Routledge , 2000, ISBN 978-1-57958-233-3 , p. 538
  12. ↑ Théâtre à lire , Catalog Copac
  13. ↑ Jéremy Billault: Valadon, Utrillo, Utter: le musée de Montmartre au coeur de la création , exponaute.com, October 27, 2015
  14. ↑ Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo, André Utter: 12, rue Cortot , Musée de Montmartre . Photos of the exhibits on the Montmartre addict website
personal data
SURNAME Utter, André
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French painter; Model and husband of Suzanne Valadon
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH February 7, 1948
Place of death Paris