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So many times was he arrested as drunk and disorderly that he kept a paint box and easel in several police stations. The police never released him until he had finished a picture.
About 1919 his pictures began sky-rocketing in value. Suzanne Valadon was also selling moderately well. A few years later, mother and son and a painter named Andre Utter, whom Mme Valadon married when she left her husband in 1909. were able to buy a little chateau in Beaujolais, and there Maurice Utrillo retired, a physical wreck. He has remained away from the world ever since, slowly recuperating.
About five years ago. apparently cured of drinking, he developed a new palette. In 1935 he suddenly married a Mme Pauwels, wealthy collector of the works of Valadon and Utrillo. The marriage so far has been most successful. Maurice Utrillo. now pious, ascetic, plays the piano and writes music, attempts poetry, travels a good deal about France. He still hates crowds and public recognition. Opened at Manhattan's Bignou Gallery last week was a fine show of his "White Period"—Parisian street scenes, painted from 1911 to 1914 when he was drunkest.