Bateau-Lavoir

The Bateau-Lavoir (French pronunciation: [bato lavwaʁ] ⓘ, "Washhouse Boat") is the nickname of a building in the Montmartre district of the 18th arrondissement of Paris that is famous in art history as the residence and meeting place for a group of outstanding early 20th-century artists such as Pablo Picasso, men of letters, theatre people, and art dealers.

It became an unofficial club that included artists Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Marie Laurencin, Amedeo Modigliani, Jean-Paul Laurens, Maurice Utrillo, Jacques Lipchitz, María Blanchard, Jean Metzinger and Louis Marcoussis; writers Guillaume Apollinaire, Alfred Jarry, Jean Cocteau, Gustave Coquiot, Cremnitz (Maurice Chevrier), Paul Fort, André Warnod, Raymond Radiguet, and Gertrude Stein; actors Charles Dullin, Harry Baur, and Gaston Modot; and art dealers Ambroise Vollard, Clovis Sagot, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and Berthe Weill.

While residing at the Bateau-Lavoir, Picasso painted works such as Young Girl with a Flower Basket, and Garçon à la pipe (Boy with a Pipe) in 1905, and one of his most noted works, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907, considered by art historians as a proto-Cubist painting (the precursor of a movement that became known as Cubism).

[4] One night, Amedeo Modigliani destroyed a number of his friends' paintings while in an alcoholic rage in the Bateau-Lavoir, according to memoirs of his daughter, Jeanne.

The Le Bateau-Lavoir is a featured setting in the 2018 season of Genius, which focuses on the life and art of Pablo Picasso.