Description: For Maurice Utrillo, art was a way of life instilled in him from his birth in the bohemian Montmartre section of Paris. His mother was Suzanne Valadon, one of the most popular artist’s models in the city and a favorite of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Though his free-spirited mother’s profession exposed Utrillo to avant-garde art at an early age, he grew to be a troubled young man, and by the age of twenty-one he was deeply afflicted by alcoholism and mental illness. To divert him, Valadon encouraged her son to paint, and he soon become popular for his unique views of Paris, particularly his native Montmartre.
Painted between 1913 and 1914, Road to Puteaux is a picturesque view of the tree-lined street that leads to Puteaux, a commune in the western suburbs of Paris. In depicting the streets of the city that in many ways raised him, Utrillo showed remarkable gentility and exceptional skill, influenced by the Impressionists that were such a part of his early life.