The building where Picasso took a studio and a comfortable apartment in 1909, looking over the avenue Frochot — the address that marks his move out of the squalor of the Bateau-Lavoir and into something like a bourgeois life.
In 1909 Pablo Picasso rented a studio and an apartment at 11 boulevard de Clichy, at the foot of the Montmartre hill, with rooms looking over the avenue Frochot. He kept it until 1912.
The move is the story. He had spent five years at the Bateau-Lavoir — one tap, no gas, freezing in winter — and he had painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon there in 1907. By 1909 the work was selling. He was twenty-seven, and this address is where he stopped being poor.
The city's own account puts it as a transition toward bourgeois life, and that is the right register. There was a maid; there was furniture; the studio and the living quarters were separate rooms rather than the same one. It is a plain fact about how modern painting was actually made: the years of squalor are the famous ones, but Cubism was developed by a man who could by then afford to live properly.
He kept working at the Bateau-Lavoir studio for part of this period. The two addresses overlap, which is why sources give the Bateau-Lavoir years variously as ending in 1909 or 1912 — he moved his living quarters first and the studio later.
The building is private. It is a short walk downhill from the place Émile-Goudeau, and the contrast between the two addresses is the most legible thing on a Picasso walk.
Picasso lives and works at the Bateau-Lavoir.
He paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon there.
He rents a studio and apartment at 11 boulevard de Clichy, keeping the Bateau-Lavoir studio for a time.
He gives up the boulevard de Clichy address.
Because the work had started selling. He had spent five years at the Bateau-Lavoir, which had one tap and no gas, and by 1909 he could afford a studio with a comfortable apartment attached, looking over the avenue Frochot. He was twenty-seven.
Both dates are given because both are partly right. He moved his living quarters to the boulevard de Clichy in 1909 but kept the Bateau-Lavoir studio for part of the period afterwards. The addresses overlap.
Because the poverty is the famous part and the comfort is not. Cubism was developed by a painter who by 1909 could afford to live properly, with a maid and separate rooms for working and living. It is a plain fact about how the work was actually made.
Picasso rented a studio and a comfortable apartment here from 1909 to 1912, overlooking the avenue Frochot — the move out of the Bateau-Lavoir's squalor and into a bourgeois life, made once the work had started selling. He kept the Bateau-Lavoir studio for part of the period.
The strip along the boulevard de Clichy below Montmartre, where the studios and the cabarets shared a pavement until only the second kind was left.
Visit the place
The legendary Montmartre cabaret where poets, singers, painters, cartoonists and musicians made the room itself an artistic creation — crowned by an extraordinary shadow theater.
Visit the place
The tiny Montmartre nightclub where Langston Hughes washed dishes in 1924 and Bricktop began her Paris career — an eight-foot bar, a dance floor for a dozen couples, and the after-hours jam sessions that ended the quarter's nights.
Visit the place
Crowded, smoky, and loud — Joe Zelli's Montmartre boîte, where the music hits you at the door and the novel's Paris nights go to end.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
