MAURICE UTRILLO Paris 1883 - 1955 Rue des Prêtes in Albi, circa 1933 Oil on canvas, 66 x 54 cm Signed lower right, titled lower left In the painting La rue des prêtres à Albi , painted in 1934, Maurice Utrillo portrays a quiet street in the French town with his usual sensitivity, restoring a suspended atmosphere but now animated by human presences. Indeed, from the 1930s onwards, the artist began to populate his urban scenes with small figures, such as the five who walk along the street here, introducing a new dynamism into his compositions. The architecture, with its sharp profiles and calm tones, retains that almost motionless quality that characterises his painting, but the human presence breaks the silence and suggests a subtle narrative. The paint material, dense but controlled, defines a space that is both real and interior. In this work, Utrillo combines compositional rigour and emotional participation with balance, transforming a corner of Albi into a personal vision of stillness, memory and life flowing slowly. The work is published in the artist's Catalogue Raisonné. Provenance: Galerie Bernheim Jeune, Paris Bibliography: P.Pétridès, L'oeuvre complet de Maurice Utrillo, vol. III, ill. no. 1493, p. 84