Bateau Lavoir: The “Laundry Ship” That Sailed the Art World of Montmartre

There is no doubt that no artist’s studio has achieved the same mythical status as that ugly building at 11bis Place Émile-Goudeau, which burned down in the 70s and is still a pilgrimage site for art lovers. I am of course talking about Bateau Lavoire, the studio where Picasso and many other important painters lived, and where Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was painted, a landmark in the art world.

Was this a work of genius or an artistic disaster and a cry for generations? I will not answer this highly charged question, but I would be very happy to take you on a historical journey that will tell you the story of the studio before and after Picasso's famous painting.

Piano factory becomes an artist's studio

The building where some of the greatest artists in Montmartre lived and worked began its “career” as a Guinguette, a popular inn where you could sit and drink cheap wine, thanks to the vineyards of Montmartre and the fact that the place was outside the customs wall of Paris.

However, in 1830 the inn closed, and in its place a piano factory was established in 1860, which existed for nearly 30 years. In 1889 the owner, a man named Maillard, decided to renovate the building and in 1889 it became a building housing 12 artists' studios.

Life in the studio was not easy at all. There was no hot water, no electricity, water had to be brought from a well in the yard, and the toilet was no more than a hole in the ground. If all this wasn't enough, on rainy days the walls and roof leaked constantly and even swayed during a storm.

This sight reminded the Jewish poet Max Jacob (1876-1944) of the laundry ships that anchored on the banks of the Seine and were used by laundresses for their work, and thus the studio received its name Beateau Lavoire, or in Hebrew, “the laundry ship.”

Since the people who lived there were poor artists in their early years, the furniture in the place would have given interior designers a headache. Here is the testimony of Fernande Olivier (1881-1966), Picasso's partner, who lived there with him in the early 20th century:

A four-legged bed with a hard mattress, a rusty stove on which was a yellow porcelain bowl, which we used to wash our faces. Next to it was a table with a towel and a bar of soap on it, and on the other side of the small room was a box that served as a place to sit, next to an uncomfortable straw chair. The rest of the space in the studio was taken up by canvases, paint pots, which were thrown on the floor, brushes and kerosene cans.

La Boheme

The cold and the very uncomfortable living conditions (to put it mildly) would certainly give the place a very low rating on the index. AIRBNBHowever, none of this bothered the painters who lived here, and the place was awash with artistic creation.

Here Picasso and Georges Braque (1882-1963) created Cubism and we have already mentioned “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”, but they were also worked by equally important painters. Here is a very partial list: Juan Gris (1887-1927), Henri Matisse, Modigliani, Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) and Maurice Utrillo (1883-1956), who lived where we are today. Montmartre MuseumAnd so he came here many times to paint and meet with the various artists who lived here.

Not only artists came to the place, but also art dealers, including Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939), the famous patron of the Impressionists, and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (1884-1979), thanks to whose support Picasso was able to continue painting when he was still a poor and unknown painter.

And of course, a few words must be said about the painter Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), nicknamed Le Douanier, and although most of his contemporaries considered him a mediocre painter, Picasso admired him. In 1908, he decided to organize a celebration in his honor at Bateau-de-Loire, inviting all the who's who of the art world of the time, including the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the painters Juan Gris and Marie Laurencin (1883-1956), the art dealer Kahnweiler, and of course Leo and Gertrude Stein.

This celebration became part of Montmartre's mythology, thanks to the people who attended it, and many years later, everyone who was there continued to remember how Henri Rousseau fell asleep during the party and didn't notice the "hill" that grew on his bald head from candle wax dripping on it...

Batu Labour – The End

Cold water and “ball shooting” services apparently do wonders for inspiration and artistic creation, but surprisingly, all those artists who lived and created in Batu Labuan left it as soon as they earned a little money and moved to more comfortable places (most of them moved toMontparnasse).

After the great artists left Montmartre, the building fell into disrepair. However, its artistic legacy did not allow the government to France To demolish it and build something else in its place, so in 1965, the Batu Boor underwent a comprehensive renovation.

However, in May 1970 a fire broke out, destroying almost the entire building, except for parts of the facade. In its place a new, modern building was built in 1978, and today it still houses an artists' studio (which can be viewed from the garden named after the famous can-can dancer fromMoulin Rouge CabaretLouise Weber, known as La Gouloue. If you get to Emile Godot Square, you can see on the front of the new building a kind of shop window containing pictures depicting the glory days of the place.

Want to discover more places in Montmartre?

If you liked the article and are interested in knowing more about the Montmartre district, let me recommend: Montmartre page, which is on my website. There you will find information about interesting places, hiking trails, restaurant recommendations, and much more. In short, everything you need for a fascinating tour of that hill, which contributed so much to the mythology of Paris.