The Montmartre Museum - Renoir Gardens is a French art museum located in Paris, in the 18th arrondissement. It is installed in a group of buildings that includes the Hotel Demarne and the House of Bel Air and surrounded by the "Renoir Gardens".
Inaugurated in 1960, it has been refurbished since 2011 and gives rise to several annual temporary exhibitions.
Origin of the Montmartre Museum - Renoir Gardens
First inaugurated in 1960 under the name "Musée du Vieux Montmartre", it is the work of Paul Yaki (1883-1964), member of the association Le Vieux Montmartre. He lived through his youth and the transformation of the neighborhood, and was concerned at an early age to keep the memory of it.
The Museum was created in one of the oldest buildings of the Butte, built in the 17th century: the Maison du Bel Air. Surrounded by gardens, Auguste Renoir rented a studio there in 1876 (two rooms under the roof and an old stable on the first floor to store his canvas and easel) and during his stay he painted major canvases such as The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, The Swing and Garden on Rue Cortot in Montmartre.
This House of Bel Air was also the place of creation and work of many artists such as
- Suzanne Valadon
- Maurice Utrillo
- André Utter (painter, husband of Suzanne Valadon)
- Emile Bernard
- the fauvists Othon Friesz and Raoul Dufy
- Demetrios Galanis
- Francisque Poulbot
- Léon Bloy
- Pierre Reverdy
The rehabilitation of the buildings of the Montmartre Museum
The house of Bel Air was supposed to be the manor of Rosimond, where Rose de Rosimond, an actor contemporary of Molière and re-enacting his plays, lived. A heritage study conducted by GRAHAL(Art History Architecture and Literature Research Group) in June 2012, however, showed that this was not the case.
The "3 Renoir Gardens" were redesigned in 2012 based on the paintings Renoir did during his stay on Rue Cortot. They consist of fruit trees, pear and almond trees, shrubs, lilacs, roses and climbing hydrangeas. From there, you can see the Clos Montmartre and the vineyard of Montmartre. This vineyard already existed in the Middle Ages, but was replanted in 1933. The three Renoir Gardens surround the Montmartre Museum and overlook the vineyards. Beyond, these gardens offer an exceptional view of the vast plain north of Paris.
This vast rehabilitation program has also made it possible to increase the exhibition space. It concerns the Demarne Hotel, a building overlooking Rue Cortot, and the studio of Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo. On October 17, 2014, the museum was able to open three new spaces: the studio-apartment of Suzanne Valadon and Maurice Utrillo, the Demarne Hotel, a beautiful residence from the Directoire period (reserved for temporary exhibitions) and the Renoir café.
The tour of the Montmartre Museum and its collections
The tour goes back over the history of the Butte, the artistic effervescence of its workshops, and the atmosphere of its famous cabarets. The Hôtel Demarne, a beautiful residence from the Directoire period, has been entirely redesigned to host temporary exhibitions as well as the Café Renoir.
The permanent collections take you back to the history of the Butte Montmartre, the effervescence of its workshops, from the Bateau-Lavoir to the Cortot workshop, and the atmosphere of its famous cabarets, from the Lapin Agile to the Moulin Rouge. One room is dedicated to the French Cancan, another to shadow theater, the dreamlike décor that made the reputation of the Chat Noir cabaret. The artists settled there from 1870. The cafés and cabarets multiplied in the 1880s. One finds there the artistic bohemia of Montmartre specific to the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Museum houses a unique collection of paintings, posters and drawings by Toulouse-Lautrec, Modigliani, Kupka, Steinlen, Valadon, Utrillo, Pierre Dumont, Charles Genty. There are also illustrations, photographs and testimonials signed by artists.
Among the works exhibited, we can admire in particular:
- The Cabaret du Chat Noir by Steinlen
- the poster Bruant at the Mirliton
- The Japanese Divan or the Moulin Rouge by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
- The Place Pigalle by Maurice Utrillo
- the Self-portrait of Suzanne Valadon
- the Parce Domine (Pardonnez, Seigneur) of Willette
- the Place des Abbesses of Roland Dubuc
- The sign of the Lapin Agile
- the Shadow Theatre by Henri Rivière
The collections belong to the "Society of history and archeology of the 9th and 18th districts of Paris "Le Vieux Montmartre" created in 1886.
The studio-apartment and Suzanne Valadon
The Montmartre Museum has reconstructed the studio where Suzanne Valadon, Maurice Utrillo and André Utter lived. Thanks to its reorganization, at 12, rue Cortot, the soul of this infernal trio has returned to the premises: the stove has returned to its place, the studio's mezzanine has been recreated, and Utrillo's room has regained its panelling and its window grating.
All the basic material having disappeared, Hubert Le Gall has hunted down all the pieces presented today in the workshop-apartment. To be as faithful as possible to the reality of the time, he relied on letters and writings of the time - a true testimony of past life - as well as on historical photographs of the place, scrupulously analyzed.
Suzanne Valadon, born on September 23, 1865, is also a character and a whole story. The natural daughter of Madeleine Valadon, a laundress, Marie-Clementine Valadon became a circus acrobat in 1880 until a fall put a premature end to this activity. With her kind of solid beauty, she attracts the attention of artists. She became their model, observing them while posing and learning their techniques. It was on this occasion that she met the painter Puvis de Chavannes, whose model she became. She also posed for Auguste Renoir, who also became her lover. She was also a model for Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, Jean-Jacques Henner and Federico Zandomeneghi. From 1881, she frequented the artistic milieu of Montmartre, where she soon had several admirers: the chansonnier Maurice Boissy and Miquel Utrillo y Molins, among others, a Spanish aristocrat, man of letters, art critic and painter. At the age of 18, she was expecting a son, Maurice Valadon, who was born on December 26, 1883, and whose father she claimed not to know. Miquel Utrillo y Molins adopted (1891) a few years later this child who will also become a painter, under the name of Maurice Utrillo (His grave is in the Saint Vincent de Montmartre cemetery).
On January 18, 1893, Erik Satie, composer and pianist, became involved with the painter Suzanne Valadon. Although he had unsuccessfully proposed to her after their first night together, Valadon moved to 6 rue Cortot in a room next to Satie's that he had occupied since 1890. In his passion for his "Biqui", he wrote impassioned notes on "her whole being, her beautiful eyes, her soft hands and her tiny feet". He composed for her Danses gothiques while she painted his portrait. Five months later, on June 20, their breakup shattered Satie "with an icy loneliness filling his head with emptiness and his heart with sadness. Erik Satie is not known to have had any other serious, open romantic relationships. As if to punish himself, he composed Vexations, a theme built from a short melody.
Suzanne Valadon then became the mistress of Paul Mousis, a stockbroker and friend of Erik Satie, whom she married on August 5, 1896. The couple moved to 12, rue Cortot, at the top of the Montmartre hill. This marriage ended in 1909 (they divorced on November 10, 1910), the year she exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris (of which she became a member until 1933).
She then married her son's friend, the painter André Utter (1886-1948), 3 years younger than her son Maurice Utrillo. She married him in 1914. This union, stormy, will last nearly thirty years. She died on April 7, 1938 surrounded by her painter friends André Derain, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Georges Kars, who drew his last portrait that day. André Utter died in 1948.
Suzanne Valadon's works are kept in many museums including the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York, the Grenoble Museum, the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts.
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