Le Bâteau Lavoir

"Constructed as a piano factory, around 1880 it was sub-divided into artist's ateliers and lodgings. According to the city plaque outside, Max Jacob christened the building 'Bateau-Lavoir' in 1889.

Inside it resembled an ocean liner, and it possessed only one water tap. Cubism was born in this building; Renoir lived here in 1885 and painted the 'Danse à la Ville' and 'Danse à la Campagne.' Suzanne Valadon worked as his model. Max Jacob moved in around 1902, Juan Gris was here from 1906 to 1922, Kees Van Dongen in 1906-7, Amedo Modigliani in 1908, and Otto Friedlich from 1909 to 1911.

Other tenants were Guillaume Appolinaire, André Salmon, Vlaminck, Braque, Dufy, and Pablo Picasso - for the first time - in 1904. Another nickname for the place was 'Villa Médicis de la Peinture Moderne.' Most of the artists moved out at the beginning of the war. The building burned down on 12. May 1970.

Today there is a modest shop-front with the name 'Bateau-Lavoir.' There is a modest window display, with faded black and white photographs. Pablo is very young in one of them. He lived a long time after the Bateau-Lavoir went into history. It is dark in the place Emile-Goudeau. A few people walk through it, a few stop to look in the window for a few moments."

(by Richard Erickson)

Fernande Olivier, l'amie de Picasso le décrira: "le 'bateau' abrita des peintres, des sculpteurs, des littérateurs, des humoristes, des acteurs, des blanchisseuses, des couturières et des marchandes des quatre saisons. Glacière l'hiver, étuve l'été, les locataires s'y rencontraient à l'unique fontaine, un broc à la main."