No artists’ studio has ever achieved quite the mythical status of that ugly building at Place Émile-Goudeau 11bis, which burned to the ground in the 1970s and yet still draws art lovers on something like a pilgrimage today. I’m talking, of course, about the Bateau Lavoir, the studio where Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and quite a few other important painters lived, and the place where “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” was painted, a true milestone in the history of art.
Was it a work of genius or an artistic disaster that we’re still paying for? I won’t try to answer that loaded question, but I’d love to take you on a historical journey through the story of the studio, both before and after Picasso’s famous painting.
A Piano Factory Becomes an Artists’ Studio
The building where some of the greatest artists of Montmartre lived and worked began its “career” as a guinguette, a casual tavern where people could sit and drink cheap wine, thanks to the vineyards of Montmartre and the fact that the place stood outside the customs wall of Paris.
But in 1830, the tavern closed, and in its place a piano factory was built in 1860, which ran for nearly 30 years. In 1889, the owner, a man named Maillard, decided to repurpose the building and turn it into a structure containing 12 studio apartments for artists.
Life at the studio was anything but easy. There was no hot water, no electricity, water had to be hauled from a well in the courtyard, and the toilet was nothing more than a hole in the ground. And as if that weren’t enough, on rainy days the walls and roof leaked nonstop, and the whole place would sway during storms.
The sight of the place reminded the Jewish poet Max Jacob (1876-1944) of the laundry boats that used to moor along the banks of the Seine for washerwomen to do their work. And that’s how the studio got its name, Bateau Lavoir, or “laundry boat.”
Since the people living there were poor artists just starting out, the furniture inside would have given any interior designer a heart attack. Here’s how Fernande Olivier (1881-1966), Picasso’s partner, who lived there with him in the early 20th century, described it:
A four-legged bed with a stiff mattress, a rusty stove with a yellow porcelain bowl on top that served us for washing our faces. Next to it, a table with a towel and a piece of soap, and on the other side of the tiny room, a crate that served as a seat, alongside an uncomfortable straw chair. The rest of the studio was taken up by canvases and tubes of paint scattered on the floor, along with brushes and cans of kerosene.
La Bohème
The cold and the deeply uncomfortable living conditions (to put it mildly) would certainly have earned the place a terrible rating on Airbnb, but for the painters who lived there, none of that mattered. The place hummed with artistic creation.
This is where Picasso and Georges Braque (1882-1963) invented Cubism, and we’ve already mentioned “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” But alongside them worked other painters of no less importance. Here’s a very partial list: Juan Gris (1887-1927), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), and Maurice Utrillo (1883-1956), who lived where the Musée de Montmartre stands today, which is why he came here often to paint and meet the various artists who lived there.
It wasn’t only artists who came to the place, but also art dealers, among them Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939), the famous patron of the Impressionists, and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884-1979), whose support allowed Picasso to keep painting during the days when he was still a poor, unknown painter.
Among all these was the writer and art patron Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), whose famous portrait Picasso painted while living at the Bateau Lavoir.
Picasso showed her no mercy, making her climb up to Montmartre dozens of times while he painted her, until the portrait finally satisfied him.
And of course, I have to say a few words about the painter Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), nicknamed Le Douanier (the customs officer). Although most of his contemporaries considered him a mediocre painter, Picasso admired him. In 1908, Picasso decided to throw a party in his honor at the Bateau Lavoir, inviting all the big names of the art world at the time, including the poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918), the painters Juan Gris and Marie Laurencin (1883-1956), the art dealer Kahnweiler, and of course Leo Stein (1872-1947) and Gertrude Stein.
That party became part of the mythology of Montmartre. Thanks to everyone who attended, for years afterward, anyone who had been there kept recalling how Henri Rousseau fell asleep during the party and didn’t notice the “mountain” that grew on his bald head from a candle dripping wax on him.
Bateau Lavoir: The End
Cold water and a hole-in-the-ground toilet apparently work wonders for inspiration and artistic creation, but surprisingly, all those artists who lived and worked at the Bateau Lavoir left the moment they made a little money and moved to more comfortable places (most of them moved to Montparnasse).
After the great artists left Montmartre, the building fell into disrepair. But its artistic legacy kept the government of France from tearing it down and building something else in its place, so in 1965, the Bateau Lavoir underwent a major renovation.
But in May 1970, a fire broke out that destroyed nearly the whole building, except for parts of the facade. A new, modern building was constructed in its place in 1978, and today you can still find artists’ studios there (you can see them from the garden named after the famous can-can dancer of the Moulin Rouge cabaret, Louise Weber (1866-1929), known as La Goulue). If you make your way to Place Émile-Goudeau, you’ll find a kind of display window set into the facade of the new building, containing photos that tell the story of the place’s glory days.
Want to Discover More Places in Montmartre?
If you enjoyed this article and want to learn more about the Montmartre neighborhood, let me point you to my Montmartre page. You’ll find information there on interesting spots, walking routes, restaurant recommendations, and more. In short, everything you’ll need for a fascinating visit to that hill, which has contributed so much to the mythology of Paris.
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